Historical Background of Philippine Literature During the Modern Period

SEPTEMBER 28, 2012 BY GJAY21

Literature and history are closely related. In discovering the history of a race, the
feelings, aspirations, customs and traditions of a people are sure to be included.
These mans feelings, aspirations, customs and traditions that are written is
literature . History that records mans life- his experiences, feelings, thoughts. It is
also literature. Then we can say that literature is history and history is literature.

Martial Law repressed and curtailed human rights, including freedom of the press

Writers used symbolism and allegories to drive home their message, at the face of
heavy censorship. Theater was used as a vehicle for protest, such as the PETA (Phil.
Educational Theater Association) and UP Theater.4.From the eighties onwards,
writers continue to show dynamism and innovation

The flowering of Philippine literature in the various languages continue especially

with the appearance of new publications after the Martial Law years and the
resurgence of committed literature in the 1960s and the 1970s.

Filipino writers continue to write poetry, short stories, novellas, novels and essays
whether these are socially committed, gender/ethnic related or are personal in
intention or not.

Of course the Filipino writer has become more conscious of his art with the
proliferation of writers workshops here and abroad and the bulk of literature
available to him via the mass media including the internet. The various literary
awards such as the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, the
Philippines Free Press, Philippine Graphic, Home Life and Panorama literary awards
encourage him to compete with his peers and hope that his creative efforts will be
rewarded in the long run. With the new requirement by the Commission on Higher
Education of teaching of Philippine Literature in all tertiary schools in the country
emphasizing the teaching of the vernacular literature or literature of the regions,
the audience for Filipino writers is virtually assured. And, perhaps, a national
literature finding its niche among the literature of the world will not be far behind.

With the requirement by the Commission on Higher Education to teach Philippine

Literature in all tertiary schools in the country, the teaching of the vernacular
literature or literature of the regions was emphasized.

Filipino writers started to use their writings to explore socio-political realities. The
tradition of protest has always been a potent force in the production of socially
committed writings, as a number of critics such as Bienvenido Lumbera, and
Epifanio San Juan Jr. have argued. The 1970s, for example, witnessed the
proliferation of poems, short stories, and novels which grappled with the burning
issues of the times. In a large number of magazines and journals, writers in both
English and Pilipino faced the problems of exploitation and injustice, and
appropriated these realities as the only relevant materials for their fiction.

Literature has started with fables and legends made by the ancient Filipinos long
before the arrival of the Spanish influence. The main themes of Philippine literature
focus on the countrys pre-colonial cultural traditions and the socio-political histories
of its colonial and contemporary traditions.

Is not a secret that many Filipinos are unfamiliar with Philippine literature especially
those written long before the Spanish arrived in our country. This is due to the fact
that the stories of ancient time were not written, but rather passed on from
generation to generation through word of mouth. Only in 1521 did the Filipinos
become to be acquainted with literature due to the influence of the Spaniards on us.
But the literature that the Filipinos became acquainted with are not Filipino made,
rather, they were works of Spanish authors.

The rise of nationalistic pride in the 1960s and 1970s also helped bring about this
change of attitude among a new breed of Filipinos concerned about the Filipino
identity.

The 1960s were, summarily, a period when writers seriously grappled with
problems of art. The early 1970s saw a proliferation of politically motivated or
committed writing and protest literature. Short-story writers became more
conscious of the political milieu and of social issues in the wake of the increased
activism all over the world and right in their country, especially during the troubled
days of a dictatorial government. Some of the more recent fiction writers include
Paulino Lim, Alfred Yuson, Jose Dalisay, Mario Eric Gamalinda, and Cristina P.
Hidalgo.

In the meantime, what about the novelists? The war provided postwar novelists
with a subject. Stevan Javellanas Without Seeing the Dawn focuses on an antiheroic
protagonist hardened and embittered by the war, but ultimately vindicating himself
and becoming almost heroic in the process. Edilberto Tiempo, the fiction writer and
critic, wrote with an awareness of social history but remained strictly formalistic in
his firm grasp of craft and his handling of history. Bienvenido Santos worked with a
sense of pathos, irony, and realism, and took up the theme of personal and
sociocultural alienation, especially among Filipinos stranded in America during the
war, suffering from intense homesickness but somehow managing to endure with
strength and fortitude and loveliness of spirit.

Francisco Sionil Joses monumental Rosales saga, which is made up of five novels,
has, more than any other series of works, touched on this Filipino search for roots,
as well as on struggle, social corruption, and the fight for social justice in post
colonial times. No other writer has been more widely translated on his own country
and other countries. N.V.M. Gonzalezs novels also reflect discipline, control, and
irony, best reflected in his portrayal of the harsh world of the fisherfolk and
peasants who endured and prevailed with dignity and grace in the face of pressure
and want. His novels are manifestations of reality turned art.

Recent novelists have ventured into the murky terra incognita of postmodernism,
rejecting the traditional concepts of fiction, portraying a world devoid of value and
meaning, interweaving literature with journalism, history, biography, and even
criticism. The objective is merely pleasure of the text through verbal or
psychological constructs, a totality of vision. Examples of such avant-garde Filipino
fictionists are Mario Eric Gamalinda, Jessica Hagedorn, and Alfred Yuson, to name
but three of the more prominent figures.

Meanwhile, the influence of literature in the country is imperiled by the impact of

modern technology on life and culture, and the Filipino writer feels it his
responsibility to put literature back on track and in the center of life, aware of the
perpetual need to upgrade and transform it into a meaningful social yet artistically
forward-moving activity, opening up to a large interdependent world, listening to
the polyphony of voices which could add to their own largeness of spirit and
understanding, aware that they cannot continue to write in isolation, that each of
the writings of all writers of the world is but a mere episode within that one general
experience of the universal person forever in the process of unfolding and evolving.

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