Philippine literature is the literature associated with the Philippines and includes the legends

of prehistory, and the colonial legacy of the Philippines. Pre-Hispanic Philippine literature were
actually epics passed on from generation to generation originally through oral tradition.
However, wealthy families, especially in Mindanao were able to keep transcribed copies of
these epics as family heirloom. One such epic was the Darangen, epic of the Maranaos of Lake
Lanao. Most of the epics were known during the Spanish era.

Classical literature in Spanish during the 19th Century

On December 1, 1846, the first daily newspaper, La Esperanza, was published in the country.
Other early newspapers were La Estrella (1847), Diario de Manila (1848) and Boletin Oficial de
Filipinas (1852). The first provincial newspaper was El Eco de Vigan(1884), which was issued
in Ilocos. In Cebu City, El Boleaetín de Cebú (The Bulletin of Cebu) was published in 1890.

On 1863, the Spanish government introduced a system of free public education that increased
the population's ability to read Spanish and thereby furthered the rise of an educated class
called the Ilustrado (meaning, well-informed). Spanish became the social language of urban
places and the true lingua franca of the archipelago. A good number of Spanish newspapers
were published until the end of the 1940s, the most influential of them being El Renacimiento,
printed in Manila by members of the Guerrero de Ermita family.

Some members of the ilustrado group, while in Spain, decided to start a Spanish publication
with the aim of promoting the autonomy and independence projects. Members of this group
included Pedro Alejandro Paterno, who wrote the novel Nínay (first novel written by a
Filipino) and the Philippine national hero, José Rizal, who wrote excellent poetry and his two
famous novels in Spanish: Noli Me Tángere (Touch Me Not), and El Filibusterismo.

Especially potent was La Solidaridad, more fondly called La Sol by the members of the
propaganda movement, founded on 15 February 1885. With the help of this paper, Filipino
national heroes like José Rizal, Graciano Lopez Jaena, and Marcelo H. del Pilarwere able to
voice out their sentiments.
Poetry and metrical romance
 Tanaga - Short poems consisting of four lines with seven
syllables each that rhyme at the end of each line.
 Ladino Poems – Were natives of first Tagalog versifiers who
saw print: highly literate in both Spanish and the vernacular.
 Corridos – Were widely read during the Spanish period that
filled the populace's need for entertainment as well as edifying
reading matter in their leisure moments.
 Awit – like corridos, these were also widely read during the
Spanish period as entertaining, edifying, reading manner in their
leisure time. It is also a fabrication of the writers imagination
although the characters and the setting may be European. The
structure is rendered dodecasyllabic quatrains.
Religious
 Moriones – Refers to the helmets of participants dressed as
Roman soldiers, their identities hidden behind colorful,
sometimes grotesque, wooden masks. Found only on the island
of Marinduque, it is down during Holy Week, culminating in
a Passion play that adds the scene of Saint Longinus' conversion
and martyrdom.
 Panunuluyan– the Tagalog version of the Mexican Las
Posadas, and literally means "seeking passage". Held
during Christmastime but especially on Christmas Eve, it
depicts Joseph and Mary' search for room at the inn
in Bethlehem. The actors playing the Holy Couple chant their
pleas for lodging in slow, mournful tones, while the innkeepers
and householders would drive them away with haughty verses
sang in dance-like metre.
 Pangangaluwa – A practice formerly widespread during All
Saints' Day which literally means for the soul[s], it is analogous to
the now-defunct English custom of Souling.
 Salubong – A ritual performed in the early morning of Easter
Sunday a few hours after the Easter Vigil and before the Easter
Mass, dramatising the meeting between the resurrected Jesus
and his mother. In its basic form, the rite begins with two
separate processions—one consists of males accompanying a
statue of the Risen Christ, the other of women with a statue of
the Virgin Mary veiled in black. Both processions meet at the
churchyard, town plaza, or some other suitable area, where a
girl, dressed as an angel, stands from a scaffold or descends on
 a rope and sings the Regina Caeli. The angel then removes the
black veil to the sound of pealing bells and firecrackers, ending
the penance and mourning of Lent.
 Senákulo – Essentially a Passion play, which depicts the
passion and death of Jesus Christ. It is customarily performed
during Holy Week, and bears similarities to Mystery
plays popular in medieval Europe.
 Secular[edit]
 Comedia – It is about a courtly love between, a prince and a
princess of different religions, and highlights concepts of colonial
attitudes to Christian-Muslim relations.
 Duplo – A forerunner of the balagtasan. The performances
consist of two teams; One composed of young women
called Dupleras or Belyakas; and the other, of young men
called Dupleros or Belyakos.
 Karagatan – comes from the legendary practice of testing the
mettle of young men vying for a maiden's hand. The maiden's
ring would be dropped into sea and whoever retrieves it would
have the girl's hand in marriage.
 Modern literature (20th and 21st century)
The greatest portion of Spanish literature was written during the American period, most
often as an expression of pro-Hispanic nationalism, by those who had been educated in
Spanish or had lived in the Spanish-speaking society of the big cities, and whose principles
entered in conflict with the American cultural trends.[citation needed] Such period of Spanish literary
production—i.e., between the independence of Spain in 1898 and well ahead into the
decade of the 1940s—is known as Edad de Oro del Castellano en Filipinas. Some
prominent writers of this era were Wenceslao Retana and Claro Mayo Recto, both in drama
and essay; Antonio M. Abad and Guillermo Gomez Wyndham, in the narrative;Fernando
María Guerrero and Manuel Bernabé, both in poetry. The predominant literary style was the
so-called "Modernismo", a mixture of elements from the
FrenchParnassien and Symboliste schools, as promoted by some Latin American and
Peninsular Spanish writers (e.g. the Nicaraguan Rubén Darío, the Mexican Amado Nervo,
the Spaniard Francisco Villaespesa, and the Peruvian José Santos Chocano as major
models).
 Santacruzan – Performed during the month of May, which
reenacts Saint Helena's Finding of the True Cross and serves as
an expression of devotion to the Virgin Mary. The young women
of a town, parish, or village dress in formal gowns and bear
attributes related to religious themes, such as titles of Mary, with
the last (often most beautiful) lady "Reyna Elena" representing
the empress, and holding a crucifix, representing the True Cross.
Its May observance is due to the pre-1962 date for the feast
of Roodmas.

 Notable Philippine literary authors

(February 7, 1893 – March 21, 1934) was
Nicanor Sta. Ana Abelardo
a Filipino composer known for his Kundiman songs, especially before
the Second World War.
He was born in San Miguel de Mayumo, Bulacan. His mother belonged to a
family of artists in Guagua, the Henson. He was introduced to music
when he was five years old when his father taught him
the solfeggio and the banduria. Abelardo completed his first composition,
a waltz entitled "Ang Unang Buko" dedicated to his grandmother, at
the age of eight. By the age of thirteen, he was playing at saloons
and cabarets in Manila, and by fifteen, he was teaching at barrio
schools in San Ildefonso and San Miguel in Bulacan
In 1916, Abelardo entered the University of the Philippines
Coservatory of Music, taking courses under Guy F. Harrison
and Robert Scholfield. During his studies, he composed the
melody of the university's official anthem, U.P. Naming Mahal.
After earning a teacher's certificate in science and
composition in 1921, he was appointed head of the
composition department at the Conservatory in 1924. Years
later, he ran a boarding school for young musicians, among
which were Antonino Vuenaventura, Alfredo Lozano, and
Lucino Sacramento.
Abelardo died in 1934 at the age of 41, leaving behind a
collection of roughly 140 compositions. [1] He is known for
redefining thekundiman, bringing the form to art-song status.
Notable among his works are 'Nasaan Ka Irog," "Magbalik Ka
Hirang," and "Himutok."
The main theater of the Cultural Center of the Philippines and
the building housing the College of Music in UP
Diliman (Abelardo Hall) were named in his honor and
memory.

José Rizal
josé Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda or popularly known as José
Rizal (Spanish pronunciation: [xoˈse riˈsal]; 19 June 1861 – 30
December 1896) was a Filipino nationalist and polymath during the tail end
of the Spanish colonial period of thePhilippines. An ophthalmologist by profession,
Rizal became a writer and a key member of the Filipino Propaganda
Movement which advocated political reforms for the colony under Spain. He
was executed by the Spanish colonial government for the crime
ofrebellion after an anti-colonial revolution, inspired in part by his writings,
broke out. Though he was not actively involved in its planning or
conduct, he ultimately approved of its goals which eventually led to
Philippine independence. He is widely considered one of the greatest
heroes of the Philippines, and is implied by Philippine law to be one
of the national heroes. He was the author of the novels Noli Me
Tángere, and El Filibusterismo, and a number of poems.
Early life

Francisco Mercado Rizal (1818–1897)

José Rizal was born in 1861 to Francisco Mercado and

Teodora Alonso in the town of Calamba in Laguna province.
He had nine sisters and one brother. His parents were
leaseholders of a hacienda and an accompanying rice farm by
the Dominicans. Both their families had adopted the additional
surnames of Rizal and Realonda in 1849, after Governor
General Narciso Clavería y Zaldúa decreed the adoption
of Spanish surnamesamong the Filipinos for census purposes
(though they already had Spanish names). José traced his
patrilineal lineage back to Fujian province in China through
Lam Co, a Chinese immigrant who came to the Philippines in
the late 17th century and was later baptized as a Christian
and renamed Domingo.
From an early age, José showed a precocious intellect. He
learned the alphabet from his mother at 3, and could read and
write at age 5. Upon enrolling at the Ateneo Municipal de
Manila, he dropped the last three names that make up his full
name, on the advice of his brother, Pacianoand the Mercado
family, thus rendering his name as "José Protasio Rizal". Of
this, he later wrote: "My family never paid much attention [to
our second surname Rizal], but now I had to use it, thus
giving me the appearance of an illegitimate child] This was to
enable him to travel freely and disassociate him from his
brother, who had gained notoriety with his earlier links to
Filipino priests Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos and Jacinto
Zamora (popularly known as Gomburza) who had been
accused and executed for treason.

Rizal's house in Calamba, Laguna.

Despite the name change, José, as "Rizal" soon distinguished

himself in poetry writing contests, impressing his professors
with his facility with Castilian and other foreign languages, and
later, in writing essays that were critical of the Spanish
historical accounts of the pre-colonial Philippine societies.
Indeed, by 1891, the year he finished his El Filibusterismo,
this second surname had become so well known that, as he
writes to another friend, "All my family now carry the name
Rizal instead of Mercado because the name R

Education
Rizal, 11 years old, a student at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila

Rizal first studied under Justiniano Aquino Cruz in Biñan,

Laguna, before he was sent to Manila.As to his father's
request, he took the entrance examination in Colegio de San
Juan de Letran but he then enrolled at the Ateneo Municipal
de Manila and graduated as one of the nine students in his
class declared sobresaliente or outstanding. He continued his
education at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila to obtain a land
surveyor and assessor's degree, and at the same time at
the University of Santo Tomas where he did take up
a preparatory course in law. Upon learning that his mother
was going blind, he decided to switch to medicine at
the medical school of Santo Tomas specializing later
in ophthalmology.

Rizal as a student at theUniversity of Santo Tomas

Without his parents' knowledge and consent, but secretly

supported by his brother Paciano, he traveled alone
to Madrid, Spain in May 1882 and studied medicine at
the Universidad Central de Madrid where he earned the
degree, Licentiate in Medicine. He also attended medical
lectures at the University of Paris and the University of
Heidelberg. In Berlin, he was inducted as a member of the
Berlin Ethnological Society and the Berlin Anthropological
Society under the patronage of the famous pathologist Rudolf
Virchow. Following custom, he delivered an address in
German in April 1887 before the Anthropological Society on
the orthography and structure of the Tagalog language. He
left Heidelberg a poem, "A las flores del Heidelberg", which
was both an evocation and a prayer for the welfare of his
native land and the unification of common values between
East and West.
At Heidelberg, the 25-year-old Rizal, completed in 1887 his
eye specialization under the renowned professor, Otto
Becker. There he used the newly
invented ophthalmoscope (invented by Hermann von
Helmholtz) to later operate on his own mother's eye. From
Heidelberg, Rizal wrote his parents: "I spend half of the day in
the study of German and the other half, in the diseases of the
eye. Twice a week, I go to the bierbrauerie, or beerhall, to
speak German with my student friends." He lived in a
Karlstraße boarding house then moved to Ludwigsplatz.
There, he met Reverend Karl Ullmer and stayed with them
in Wilhelmsfeld, where he wrote the last few chapters of Noli
Me Tángere.
Rizal was a polymath, skilled in both science and the arts. He
painted, sketched, and made sculptures and woodcarving. He
was a prolific poet, essayist, and novelist whose most famous
works were his two novels, Noli Me Tángere and its sequel, El
filibusterismo.[note 2][8]These social commentaries during
the Spanish colonization of the country formed the nucleus of
literature that inspired peaceful reformists and armed
revolutionaries alike. Rizal was also a polyglot, conversant in
twenty-two languages.
Rizal's multifacetedness was described by his German friend,
Dr. Adolf Meyer, as "stupendous."[note 5] Documented studies
show him to be a polymath with the ability to master various
skills and subjects.[17][19][19][20] He was an ophthalmologist,
sculptor, painter, educator, farmer, historian, playwright and
journalist. Besides poetry and creative writing, he dabbled,
with varying degrees of expertise, in
architecture, cartography,
economics, ethnology, anthropology, sociology, dramatics,
martial arts, fencing and pistol shooting. He was also
a Freemason, joining Acacia Lodge No. 9 during his time in
Spain and becoming a Master Mason in 1884.
rizal means persecution! Good! I too want to join them and be
worthy of this family name...".