Philippine Literature

Philippine Literature cannot be studied in a vacuum. It is a product, a reflection of and a reaction to the period, the place and the people who produced it. Hence, the works can best be understood and appreciated if they are studied not only as a literary gems but as a tangible expression of a people's culture, aspirations and way of life.

Philippine Literature is as old as its country's history. To follow a chronological order, the periods of Philippine Literature may be divided into: the Pre-Colonical Period, the Spanish Period, the Nationalistic Period, the American Period, the Japanese Period, and lastly, the Contemporary Period.

PHILIPPINE LITERATURE DURING THE PRE-COLONICAL PERIOD

Although this period as the longest in the Philippine Literature, its literary output cannot be called substantial, simply because much of it was oral, handed down to us by our tribal ancestors in the form of epics, tales, songs, riddles, and proverbs.

During this period, there was also very much a part of pre-colonial literature and the people's daily life. These songs were sung on important occasions, such as birth, death, weddings, wars, harvesting, and planting seasons, or simply integrated into the daily tasks of the Filipinos. In prose, the Filipinos had myths, tales, fables, legends, and fantastic stories.

The most important and the longest form of pre-colonial poetry was the folk epic. Unlike other countries that have national epics, the Philippines has only regional epics. Some of the popular epics are Biag ni Lam-Ang, from the Ilocos region, Hinilawod from Panay Island in the Visayas, and Tuwaang, Bantugan, and Indarapatra at Sulayman from the South (Balarbar, 1989).