This is a primary activity administered to determine your baseline

knowledge and preparedness for the lesson.

ICAL, ERICA ANN E. LFCA222M008

Activity: Historical Background of Philippine Literature

I. Direction: Read in advance the history of Philippine Literature and tell us how
our literature evolves in the following periods.

1. Pre-colonial Period
- The Pre-colonial Period is all about oral traditions.
- Hard copies of literature pieces here do not exist, they passed down stories orally.
- People may add or deduct words from the story itself while passing down or people
may have created their own version of the story. That’s why stories that came from
this era are not advisable to be used as hard evidence.
- This is where Oral Literatures like Bugtong and Salawikain emerged.
- Folk songs also like Hele and Kanogan.
- Folk Tales like Myths, Legends, Fables and Epics started.

2. Spanish Colonization Period

- This is where religion started and alibata is replaced by the Roman alphabet.
- This is where Jose Rizal started to create his pieces that would go against the Spanish
government.
- This period is the longest among the other period where we can access hard
evidences.
- Most of our culture and traditions started here, we adapted mostly of the Spanish
culture and tradition, faces, language and education because they colonized us for
more than 300 years.
- Some of the Religious Literature here are Pasyon and Senakulo.
- While Non-Religious Literature here are AWIT, KORIDO.

3. Nationalistic/Propaganda and Revolutionary Period

- Here is where NATIONALISM started.
- We have now turned Spanish language down and let the TAGALOG language rule.
- Literature in this period revolves around Politics like Political Essays and novels
(Diariong Tagalog and the famous La Solidaridad. When it comes to novels there are
Noli Me Tangere and El Filibustersimo, Jose Rizal’s masterpieces.

Chapter II: Historical Background of Philippine Literature 1

4. American Colonial Period
- For the 35 years of the American Colonization we all started to adapt their language
and there we started to use English, specifically by those Filipino Writers who have
access for education and information.
- In this period, female writers were given the spotlight unlike when they were under
the Spanish rule in which male writers are dominant.
- Literature during this period focuses more on novels and short stories which is highly
influenced by the western literary trends like romanticism and realism.
5. Japanese Occupation
- In this period Tagalog Poets started to switch from Balagatas tradition and instead
focus on free verse poems that uses simple language. Not much usage of poetic
words.
- Where Haiku was introduced to the Philippines.

6. Contemporary/Modern Period
- This period is where the EDSA People Power Revolution happened.
- Where protest, movements that fights for the human rights and press freedom
started to show.
- Theaters were used as a tool to let the people know what they are fighting for.
- Literature presented here is how writers, poets use their power to write stories and
poetry pieces. How movies used their characters to portray different characters that
would show their movement and how singers used their voices to create powerful
songs that could open the eyes of many.

Chapter II: Historical Background of Philippine Literature 2