Report by: Mary Jane T.

Hugo

BSE III- General Science

 1565- first permanent settlement in the
Philippines
 Imposed on the Filipino people the
Spanish monarchy and the Roman
Catholic religion

Pueblos (taga-bayan) – were easily reach

of the power of the Church and State
- “ urbane and civilized”
Filipino

Taga- bundok, taga-bukid- kept their

distance from the colonial administrators
and their native agents; staying close to
the sources of their livelihood in the
mountains or the hinterlands
-Indio (native); Brutos salvages (
salvage brutes)
 Non-Christian-Filipinos come to be
regarded with Condescension
 The name “Filipino” was reserved for
Spaniards born in the Philippines
 Everybody else who had only native
ancestors was an “Indian”.
 Spanish Colonial Rule was supposed to
derive its authority from the union of
Church and State.
 The Parish Priest- only Spaniards who
had direct contact with Filipinos ;became
the embodiment of Spanish power and
culture among the colonized populace.
 The literature of the entire period was
in the main created under his
encouragement and supervision
 Although in the last half century of
Spanish rule, the attitudes and
outlook of medieval Catholicism as
these were represented by the friar/
missionary/ parish priest began to be
challenged by Filipinos who had, by
virtue of a university education, come
into the orbit of liberal minds in
nineteenth- century Spain and
Europe.
 A Confluence of two
cultures
 Monopoly of printing presses by religious orders
prior to the nineteenth century explains the
religious content of Early written literature.
 Dominicans were the first to set-up a printing
press,
 Doctrina christiana ( Christian Doctrine 1593) –
first book ever published in the Philippines
 Francisco Blancas de San Jose (friar-
lexicographer)- produced the first printed literary
work in Tagalog appeared in one of the books
 This was the poem “May Bagyo Ma’t Mat Rilim (
Though It Is Stormy and Dark) which was
published in Memorial de la vida Cristiana (
Memorandum of Christian life, 1605) along with
the poems by San Jose himself and by the
bilingual poet (ladino) Fernando Bagongbanta.
 Doctrina Christiana

The First Book

Printed in the
Philippines

printed in Gothic
letters and Tagalog
characters

signed Juan de Cuellar

 “

 uses turbulent nature of imagery to affirm Christian heroism

 Use of the seven-syllable line, the monorime and the talinghaga (metaphor) of
Pre-colonial poetry.
 Anonymous author
 meeting of two cultures
 The work exemplifies that the missionaries were doing to oral literature they
found among Filipinos
 Being such a pervasive presence in Philippine society during the three centuries
of Spanish colonialism, the songs , riddles, proverbs and tales of the Pagans
understandably made the missionaries and the Parish priest apprehensive
 Oral literature was “Christianized
 Spanish Imposition, Filipino Response
 Reading, writing and arithmetic were taught in
catechetical school
 Main purpose of schooling was to impart the
fundamentals of Christian doctrine to the children
 In eighteenth century, it was rare Filipino who
had schooling beyond the catechetical level
 Ladinos( Latinized)- Filipinos able to read and
write in one of the Latin languages
Pedro Bukaneg- the Ilokano poet to whom the
published version of Lam-ang is often attributed
Tomas Pinpin- the printer/author of a manual titled
Ang Librong Pag-aaralan ng mga Tagalog ng Wikang
Castilla, ( The Book the tagalogs Must Study in
Spanish, 1610)
Fernando Bagongbanta- the poet mentioned earlier
for his contribution to San Jose’s Memorial de la vida
Cristiana
 Gaspar Aquino de Belen- the first Filipino literary
artist, the first one to come up with a long work
that bore the signs of conscious design and
careful composition

 Ang Mahal na Passion ni Jesu Christong

Panginoon Natin ( The Sacred Passion of Jesus
Christ Our Lord, 1704) appeared as an
addendum to Aquino’s translation of a Spanish
devotional work. Tagalog ostosyllabic verse, the
poem relates the events leading to the crucifixion,
starting from the Last Supper, in strophies of five
monoriming lines
was treasured as a Christian narrative poem
intended to replace the epic poems of the Pagan past
  Pasyon- a permanent tribute to the 1704
poem

 Sinakulo- a stage play on the passion and

death of Christ

Halos lahat ng pasyon ay nasusulat sa

this is a dramatic
quintillos
performance to
commemorate the unang Pilipinong sumulat at kumanta
passion and death ng pasyon sa Tagalog ay si “Padre
of Jesus Christ. Gaspar Aquilino de Belen”
Eighteenth Century

 Komedya- theatre genre; drew its plot

from medieval Spanish ballads about
highborn warriors and their colourful
adventures for love and fame, providing
Filipino viewers a glimpse of an Idealized
European society that exemplified the
virtue of religious piety and steadfast
loyalty to the monarch
 2 types of narrative poems
became popular at this time
 Awit – strophe consisted of four
monoriming dodesyllabic lines
 Korido- strophe consisted of four
monoriming octosyllabic lines
 Both were sung or chanted, never
simply read and apparently they
circulated the way oral literature
circulated, enabling the more
popular ones to reach a wide
audience at atime when the
greater majority og the population
was illiterate
First half of the Nineteenth
Century
 Witnessed the peak of the awit as a poetic genre in
the masterwork of the poet Francisco Baltazar
(1788-1862), p.k.a as Balagtas
 Famous works:
 La India Elegante y el Negrito Amante ( The
fashionable India and Her Negrito Suitor)- a short
farce
 Orosman at Zafira- a full length komedya
 Pinagdaanang Buhay ni Florante at ni Laura sa
Cahariang Albania ( The life of Florante and Laura
Went Through in the Kingdom of Albania, 1838)
 Historians put Balagtas in the forefront of Philippine
Literature, designating him as first of the two literary
giants of the period of Spanish colonialism
 Filipino writers during Balagtas’ time wrote not for a
reading but for a “listening “audience.
 Pinagdaanang Buhay ni Florante at ni Laura sa
Cahariang Albania ( The life of Florante and
Laura Went Through in the Kingdom of
Albania,1838)
 Florante at Laura (Florante and Laura)
was indicative of the pressures that
acted upon the Filipino man of letters ;
is in the form of the awit familiar to
Filipino lovers of traditional verse, and it
was sung like the ancient epics and the
more recent pasyon
 Marks of classical learning manifest to
Greek and Roman Mythology
 Its figurative language ( extravagant
rhetoric of Spanish poetry of the Middle
Ages)
 Mahiganteng Langit (Vengeful

Heaven)
- the first celebrated soliloquies that make Florante at Laura a rich source
of ethical precepts many of which have entered the traditional lore of
Filipinos.
In the last half of the nineteenth century, Jose Rizal and his generation
were to read foreshadowing of nationalism in Balagtas’ poem
The poem was thought to be an accurate reflection of the misery and
outrage of a people refusing to be crushed by foreign oppression
An imaginative work anticipating in an allegorical form the reformist’s
own condemnation of colonial abuses.

 The appearance of modern Tagalog poetry in the twentieth century was

to come in the form of a revolt against Balagtas.
 Ibong Adarna
 Ibong Adarna is an epic written in the 18th Century
about an eponymous magical bird. The title's longer
form during theSpanish Era was "Corrido at Buhay na
Pinagdaanan nang Tatlóng Principeng anac nang
Haring Fernando at nang Reina Valeriana sa
Cahariang Berbania" (Filipino for "Corrido and Life
Lived by the Three Princes, children of King Fernando
and Queen Valeriana in the Kingdom of Berbania").
 The author of the largely known epic was claimed to
be José de la Cruz or "Huseng Sisiw", but until now
the real author was never known.
Orosman at Zafira( 1974)

 Florante at Laura was described

as ‘the cause of every evil deed’,
is the force that keeps things
happening in Orosman at Zafira.
 Three- part play
 Balagtas Real concerns:
 Florante at Laura –to rise above the theme of religious
war., real concern appear with the clash of human motives
when men and their women are c aught up in their turnoil
of social disorder

 In Orosman at Zafira, creation of character portraits that

have a greater depth and dimension than the conventional
cardboard heroine and heroes of the celebrated awit,
revealing a more mature artist than the one we know
through Florante at Laura.
 Modesto de Castro
 a native priest who lived in the first half of the
nineteenth century, notable for his sermons in Tagalog
Contribution :
 Pagsusulatan ng Dalawang Binibini na si Urbana at Feliza
( Exhange of Letters between Twp Maidens Urbana and
Feliza, 1864- Popular books of manner
 Sa Katungkulan sa Bayan (On Public Officers) and Sa
Piging ( at a Banquet) are excerpts from the book that
helps us appreciate the profound influence of de Castro’s
prescriptions on the social behaviors of Christian
Filipinos, not only in the Tagalog region
 Urbana at Feliza was to establish the stereotypes of
popular characters who were to people Tagalog dramas
and novels in the early years of the twentieth century.
 Urbana at Feliza

 Written by Modesto de Castro

during 1938
 In which two sisters exchange
letters on sundry topics that
included the requisites of public
office and proper decorum at the
dinner table
 this was suggested as a form of
expression by women. The story relates the
importance of purity
and ideal virtues that
married people should
practice and enrich.
 The Growth of a Nationalist Consciousness
 A royal decree in 1863 opened new horizons
to the emergent middle class when it
provided for a complete educational system
consisting of elementary, secondary and
collegiate levels
 Pedro Paterno (1857-1911) and Jose Rizal
(1861-1896) were writers who employed
Spanish no longer to propagandize for the
Christian religion but for changing concept
of “Filipino”, Which at this stage had ceased
to refer only to Philippine-born Spaniards
and now include Spanish mestizos, Chinese
mestizos and Hispanized indios.
 Pedro A. Paterno
Works:
 Sampaguita (native fragrant flowers), a book
more notable for what its symbolized than for
its value of literature ;marked the beginning of
the national consciousness among the Filipino
intelligentsia

 Ninay (1885), like Sampaguitas, insisted on its

“nationality”, first Filipino novel ever
Jose Rizal
 Noli Me Tangere
 Noli Me Tangere marks the first time
realism as a literary concept entered
Philippine writing.
 It was with the end of analysing problems
of the colony so that something could be
done to solve them
The chapter “Capitan Tiago” is a masterful
character study in which touches the irony and
wit leavewn the authors heaviliy detailed
commentary onn the weaknesses of the native
elite that make them prone to exploitation by
their foreign masters.
 El Filibusterismo
( The Filibuster, 1891)
 It is even more loosely plotted than Noli
Me Tangere but its wealth of political
insight makes it an interesting window
into Rizal’s mind. It is a bitter book,
attesting to Rizal’s darkening vision of the
Possibility of enlightened rule by Spain in
the immediate future. The final chapter
of the novel is a dramatic working out of
the novelist’s view of revolution through
character analysis in which Simoun’s pain
and anguish are juxtapose with Padre
Florentino’s quietism and moral certitude
to bring the novel to a deeply moving
conclusion.
 Rizal’s Poetry

 A las Flores de Heidelberg ( To the

Flowers of Heidelberg)-
conversational, only hinting the at
the pain of the exile
 Ultimo Adios (Final Farewell)-
sonorous and incantatory,
achieving a cumulative emotional
impact by piling detail upon
evocative detal intil the climatic
penultimate stanza
 The essay as literary reform found
a congenial time to develop during
the campaign for reform in the
 Last quarter of the
Nineteenth century

 The Propaganda Movement (1872-

1896) provided the impetus for its
development- issues had to be
clarified, abuses and injustice
denounced accusations refused, future
action laid out
La Solidaridad ( The Solidarity, 1889-1895)

 La Solidaridad ( The Solidarity,

1889-1895) .the organ that would
project the views of the
movement was founded “ to fight
all forms of reaction, to impede
all retrogression, to hail and
accept all liberal ideas and to
defend all progress

 Two leading propagandists:

Marcelo H. del Pilar and Jose Rizal
 Su Excelencia, Senor Don Vicente
Barrantes by Rizal and
Asimilacion de Filipinas (The
Assimilation of the Philippines) by
Marcelo H. del Pilar
 Marcelo H. Del Pilar
(1850-1896), “Plaridel”
Works:
 Sagot ng Espanya sa Hibik ng Pilipinas (The Respone of
Spain to the Pleas of the Philippines)- was a companion
piece to Hermenegildo Flores” Hibik ng Pilipinas sa Inang
Espanya ( The Plea of the Philippines to Mother Spain) --
- [portrayal of the sad fight of the Philippines under the
the “monastic supremacy” of the friars
 Ang Pasyong Dapat Ipag-alab ng Taong Baba sa
Kalupitan ng Fraile (The Passion Story That Ought to
inflame the Hearts of Persons Subjected to the Cruelty of
Friars)
 Dupluhan- a fragment from a duplo discourse in which
the form of the folk game has been given patriotic
content.
 Shift of Spanish to Tagalog
as the language of the
Nationalist movement
signalled more than a
change of medium
 Reformism to Revolution
 The literature that was to be
written in Tagalog
 Katipunan
 Katipunan Andres Bonifacio
(1863-1896) and Emilio
Jacinto (1875-1899) used
Tagalog to advantage as
a tool for organizing the
masses.
 Bonifacio’s poem aiming is to
establish once and for all the
break from reformism makes the
daughter speak out in the
renunciation of the “negligent and
perfidious” mother.

 Ang Dapat Mabatid ng mga

Tagalog (What the Tagalog Must
Know) is a simple and forthright
essay rallying in the Struggle
against Spain
 Emilio Jacinto

 Liwanag At Dilim- Emilio’

Jacinto’s short essays that have
come down to us
 Ang Ningning at Liwanag (Shiny
Light and Brighty Light)
 and “Katipunan”
 The Revolution that led to the
proclamation of independence in
Kawit, Cavite.
 Apolinario Mabini

 Mabini was among those who tried

through reason and passion to keep
the Revolution going.
 General Franklin Bell, the ruthless
commander of the American Forces
in Batangas, called for the surrender
of the Filipino revolutionary forces
 La Revolucion Filipina ( The
Philippine Revolution, 1902), Mabini’s
letter; a quality that bespeaks the
author’s prodigious intelligence and
wisdom
 Women as literary artists doubtless
existed prior to the nineteenth century.
 In the latter half of the nineteenth
century, early literary pieces by women
surfaced, all of the poems.
 Leona Florentino- an Ilokano poet whose
opinions and married life departed from
the moral and social expectations of the
period
 Gregoria de Jesus – Supremo’s wife who
addresses her deceased husband Andres
Bonifacio, poignant in its recollection of
details of her married past that had now
become reminders of her bereavement
 The third bears the nine women, each
one an allegorical penname, pleading
their case as Victims of the ravages of
U.S. colonial rape
 At the close of the Nineteenth
Century, the body of written
Philippine literature was in general
largely religious, consisting
poems and Homilitic essays pronted
in Catholic Pamphlets and
newspapers
 Existed in the oral tradition and
manuscripts
 Made up poems, plays and songs on
romantic subjects taken from the
Spanish ballads.
 Marks the beginning of a truly
Filipino literature
Source:

Madiyaw Karajaw: Antolohiya ng mga Panitikan sa Pilipinas