Literatures of The Philippines and The World

PHILIPPINE LITERATURE
PRE-COLONIAL PERIOD Early Times – 1564
The first period of the Philippine literary history is the longest. Long time before the
Spaniards and other foreigners landed on Philippine shores, our forefathers already
had their own literature stamped in the history of our race.
RIDDLES (bugtong) – battle of wits among participants. It is called Tigmo in Cebu,

Paktakon in Ilonggo and Patotdon in Bicol.
PROVERBS (salawikain) – wise sayings that contain a metaphor used to teach as a

food for thought.
TANAGA – one stanza poems consisted usually of four lines with seven syllables, all lines
rhyming.
FOLK SONGS – one of the oldest forms of Philippine literature that emerged in the Pre-
Spanish period.
a. Hele or oyayi -lullaby
b. Ambahan (Mangyan) –about human relationships and social entertainment
c. Kalusan (Ivatan) – work songs
d. Tagay (Cebuano and Waray) – drinking song e. Kanogan (Cebuano) – song of

lamentation for the dead
MYTHS – explain how the world was created, how certain animals possess certain
characteristics, why some places have waterfalls, volcanoes, mountains, flora and
fauna
LEGENDS – explain the origin of things. FABLES – used animal characters and allegory
FANTASY STORIES – deal with underworld characters such as tiyanak, aswang, kapre
and so on
EPICS – these are narratives of sustained length based on oral tradition revolving
around supernatural events or heroic deeds.
Biag ni Lam-ang (Ilocano)
Hinilawod (Panay)
Kudaman (Palawan)
1|LET GenEd Literature

Darangen (Maranao)
FOLK TALES – made up of stories about life, adventure, love, horror and humor
where one can derive lessons about life.
SPANISH COLONIZATION PERIOD 1565-1863
Spanish occupied the Philippines in early 15th century. The Spanish colonization period
has two distinct classifications – religious and secular.
RELIGIOUS LITERATURE – religious lyrics written by Ladino poets or those versed

in both Spanish and Tagalog were included in early catechism.
a. Pasyon – long narrative poem about the passion and death of Christ. E.g.
1704 – Mahal Na Pasion ni Jesu Cristo
b. Senakulo – dramatization of the pasyon, it shows the passion and death of
Christ.
SECULAR LITERATURE – non-religious literature
a. Awit – colorful tales of chivalry made for singing and chanting.

E.g. Ibong Adarna
b. Korido – metrical tale written in octosyllabic quatrains.
E.g. Florante and Laura by Francisco Baltazar
c. Prose Narratives - written to prescribe proper decorum.
E.g. 1879 – Modesto de Castro’s “Pagsusulatan ng Dalawang Binibini na
si Urbana at si Feliza” and Joaquin Tuason’s “Ang Bagong Robinson”
Spanish Colonization Period also has oral and written literature.
ORAL LITERATURE – songs, religious drama, drama
SONGS – a composition for voice and voices performed by singing.

Kundiman – is a Filipino love song traditionally sung by a man wooing
the woman of his dreams.
a. Leron Leron Sinta – this song depicts humility.
b. Sarung banggi – a Kundiman which means “one night” or “one
evening” in Bicol.
RELIGIOUS DRAMA – setting forth events recorded in the Bible or moral lessons
to be drawn from religious teaching. E.g. Panunuluyan – a Philippine Christmas
dramatic ritual.
DRAMA –enacted in front of live audiences. It is also known as play.

a. Why Women Wash the Dishes – this is filled with humor

WRITTEN LITERATURE – short stories and poetry
SHORT STORIES – a brief work of literature

POETRY –an imaginative awareness of experience expressed
through meaning, sound, and rhythmic language. E.g. 1838 –
Florante at Laura –about the love and determination.
NOTABLE FILIPINOS DURING THE SPANISH COLONIZATION PERIOD IN PHILIPPINE

LITERATURE
JOSE DELA CRUZ (1746-1829) – he was the foremost proponent of the

komedya during his time.
FRANCISO BALTAZAR (1788-1862) – popularly called Balagtas, he is the

acknowledged master of traditional Tagalog poetry.
NATIONALISTIC/ PROPAGANDA AND REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 1864-1896
Literary Forms under this period include propaganda literature and

revolutionary literature.
PROPAGANDA LITERATURE – reformatory in objective.
a. POLITICAL ESSAYS – satires, editorials and news articles were written to

attack and expose the evils of Spanish rule.
i. 1882 – Diariong Tagalog
ii. 1888 – La Solidaridad
b. POLITICAL NOVELS
i. 1887 – Noli Me Tangere
ii. 1891 – El Filibusterismo
REVOLUTIONARY LITERATURE – more propagandistic than literary as it is more

violent in nature and demanded complete independence for the country.
a. POLITICAL ESSAYS – helped inflame the spirit of revolution
E.g. 1896 – Kalayaan – was a newspaper of the Katipunan which means
"independence and solidarity”, edited by Emilio Jacinto.
b. POETRY
E.g. 1896 – Hibik ng Pilipinas – Andres Bonifacio
1896 – Liwanag at Dilim – Emilio Jacinto
1898 – True Decalogue – Apolinario Mabini
AMERICAN COLONIZATION PERIOD 1901-1946

Philippine literature in English, as a direct result of American colonization of the
country, could not escape being imitative of American models of writing
especially during its period of apprenticeship.
A. PERIOD OF IMITATION
B. PERIOD OF APPRENTICESHIP (1910-1930)
a. TAGALOG NOVELS 1906 – Banaag at Sikat – by Lope K. Santos
b. ROMANTIC POETRY Pag-ibig – by Jose Corazon de Jesus.
c. SHORT STORIES
i. 1925 – Dead Stars – by Paz Marquez Benitez.
ii. 1927 – The Small Key – by Paz Latorena
iii. 1933 – Footnote to Youth –by Jose Garcia Villa
iv. 1940 – We Filipinos are Mild Drinkers –by Alejandro Roces.
d. NOVEL 1930 – Childe of Sorrow –first novel in English by Zoilo Galang.
C. PERIOD OF EMERGENCE (1920-1930)

SHORT STORIES – most prevalent literary form.
i. Jose Garcia Villa – earned the international title “Poet of the
Century”.
During this period, writers were given the chance to write in newspapers.
Some of these newspapers were:
1902 – Ang Kaluwasan (Cebuano)
1903 – Muling Pagsilang (Tagalog)
1913 – Makinaugalingon (Ilonggo)
1908 – Nueva Era (Ilokano)
The best-known magazines that capitalized on short stories and poems

were:
1922 – Liwayway (Tagalog)
1930 – Bisaya (Cebuano)
1934 – Hiligaynon (Ilonggo)
1934 – Bannawag (Ilokano)
The JAPANESE Period (1941-1945 ) and The REPUBLIC (1946- 1985)
Philippine literature came into a halt. The use of the English language was
forbidden, and the use of the Filipino language was mandated under the
Japanese rule. For some this was a problem, but to most writers, it was a blessing
in disguise. •
Almost all newspapers were stopped except for some. Filipino literature was
given a break during this period. Many wrote plays, poems, short stories, etc. Topics
and themes were often about life in the provinces.
DRAMA. The drama experienced a lull during the Japanese period because
movie houses showing American films were closed. The big movie houses were

just made to show stage shows. Many of the plays were reproductions of English
plays to Tagalog.
NEWSPAPER WRITINGS that came out during this period were journalistic in
nature. Writers felt suppressed but slowly, the spirit of nationalism started to seep
into their consciousness. While some continued to write, the majority waited for
a better climate to publish their works.
POETRY. The common theme of most poems during the Japanese occupation
was nationalism, country, love, and life in the barrios, faith, religion and the arts.
The field of SHORT STORY widened during the Japanese Occupation. Many
wrote short stories.
ESSAYS were composed to glorify the Filipinos and at the same time, to
figuratively attack the Japanese.
PHILIPPINE LITERATURE: THE CONTEMPORARY PERIOD
THE REBIRTH OF FREEDOM (1946-1970)
The Americans returned in 1945. Filipinos rejoiced and guerillas who fled
to the mountain joined the liberating American Army. On July 4, 1946, the
Philippines regained is freedom and the Filipino flag waved joyously alone. The
chains were broken.
State of Philippine Literature during this period. The early post-liberation period
was marked by a kind of “struggle of mind and spirit” posed by the sudden
emancipation from the enemy, and the wild desire to see print.
NOTABLE WORKS:
1. HEART OF THE ISLANDS (1947) –a collection of poems by Manuel Viray
2. PHILIPPINES CROSS SECTION (1950) –a collection of prose and poetry by

Maximo Ramos and Florentino Valeros
3. PROSE AND POEMS (1952) –by Nick Joaquin
4. PHILIPPINE WRITING (1953) –by T.D. Agcaoili
5. PHILIPPINE HARVEST –by Amador Daguio
6. HORIZONS LEAST (1967) –a collection of works by the professors of UE, mostly

in English (short stories, essays, research papers, poem and drama) by Artemio

Patacsil and Silverio Baltazar The themes of most poems dealt with the usual
love of nature, and of social and political problems. Toribia Maño’s poems
showed deep emotional intensity.
7. WHO SPOKE OF COURAGE IN HIS SLEEP –by NVM Gonzales
8. SPEAK NOT, SPEAK ALSO –by Conrado V. Pedroche
Other poets were Toribia Maño and Edith L. Tiempo, Jose Garcia Villa’s HAVE
COME, AM HERE won acclaim both here and abroad
THE NEW FILIPINO LITERATURE DURING THIS PERIOD
Philippine literature in Tagalog was revived during this period. Most

themes in the writings dealt with Japanese brutalities, of the poverty of life
under the Japanese government and the brave guerilla exploits.
Period of Activism (1970-1972)

Many young people became activists to ask for changes in the
government. In the expression of this desire for change, keen were the
writings of some youth who were fired with nationalism in order to
emphasize the importance of their petitions.
The Literary Revolution

The youth became completely rebellious during this period. This
was proven not only in the bloody demonstrations and in the sidewalk
expressions but also in literature. Campus newspapers showed rebellious
emotions. The once aristocratic writers developed awareness for
society. They held pens and wrote on placards in red paint the
equivalent of the word MAKIBAKA (To dare!).
PALANCA AWARDEES FOR LITERATURE IN ENGLISH
Established in 1950, the Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature had

been giving cash prizes for short story, poetry and one-act play writing as an
incentive to Filipino writers. The prizes come from La Tondena, Inc., the firm
founded by the late Carlos Palanca Sr.
PERIOD OF THE NEW SOCIETY (1972-1980)

The period of the New Society started on September 21, 1972. The Carlos
Palanca Awards continued to give annual awards. Almost all themes in most
writings dealt with the development or progress of the country –like the Green
Revolution, family planning, proper nutrition, environment, drug addiction and
pollution. The New Society tried to stop pornography or those writings giving bad

influences on the morals of the people. All school newspapers were temporarily
stopped and so with school organizations.
FILIPINO POETRY DURING THE PERIOD OF THE NEW SOCIETY. Themes of most
poems dealt with patience, regard for native culture, customs and the
beauties of nature and surroundings.
THE PLAY UNDER THE NEW SOCIETY. The government led in reviving old plays
and dramas, like the Tagalog Zarzuela, Cenaculo and the Embayoka of the
Muslims which were presented in the rebuilt Metropolitan Theater, the Folk Arts
Theater and the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
RADIO AND TELEVISION. Radio continued to be patronized during this period.

The play series like SI MATAR, DAHLIA, ITO AND PALAD KO, and MR. LONELY
were the forms of recreation of those without television
FILIPINO FILMS. A yearly Pista ng mga Pelikulng Pilipino (Yearly Filipino Film
Festival) was held during this time. During the festival which lasted usually for a
month, only Filipino films were shown in all theaters in Metro Manila.
1. MAYNILA…SA MGA KUKO NG LIWANAG written by Edgardo Reyes
and filmed under the direction of Lino Brocka. Bembol Roco played the
lead role.
2. MINSA’Y ISANG GAMU-GAMO; Nora Aunor was the principal
performer here.
3. GANITO KAMI NOON…PAANO KAYO NGAYON: led by Christopher de
Leon and Gloria Diaz.
4. INSIANG: by Hilda Koronel
5. AGUILA: led by Fernando Poe Jr., Jay Ilagan and Christopher de Leon
COMICS, MAGAZINES AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS

During this period of the New Society, newspapers donned new forms.
News on economic progress, discipline, culture, tourism and the like were
favored more than the sensationalized reporting of killings, rape and robberies.
OVERVIEW OF THE LITERATUE DURING THE NEW SOCIETY

Bilingual education which was initiated by the Board of National
Education as early as 1958 and continued up to the period of Martial Rule in
September 21, 1972, resulted in the deterioration of English in the different levels
of education. The focus of education and culture was on problems of national
identity, on re-orientation, renewed vigor and a firm resolves to carry out plans
and programs.

PERIOD OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC (1981-1985)
After ten years of military rule and some changes in the life of the Filipino
which started under the New Society, Martial Rule was at last lifted on January
2, 1981.
FILIPINO POETRY
Poems during this period of the Third Republic were romantic and
revolutionary. Writers wrote openly of their criticism against the government.
The supplications of the people were coached in fiery, colorful, violent, profane
and insulting language.
FILIPINO SONGS
Many Filipino songs dealt with themes that were really true-to-life like
those of grief, poverty, aspirations for freedom, love of God, of country and of
fellowmen.
PHILIPPINE FILMS DURING THE PERIOD

The yearly Festival of Filipino Films continued to be held during this
period. The people’s love for sex films also was unabated.
MASTERWORKS OF THE WORLD

12 Literary Works that Have Influenced the World
1. The Bible or Sacred Writings – originating from Palestine and Greece, this has
become the basis of Christianity.
2. The Qur’an – from Arabia, literally meaning "the recitation"; also romanized
as Koran) is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims believe to be
a revelation from God(Allah) to the final prophet Muhammad through the angel
Gabriel. It is widely regarded as the finest work in classical Arabic literature. The Quran
is divided into chapters (Arabic: sūrah, plural suwar), which are subdivided into verses
(Arabic: āyah, plural āyāt).
3. Iliad and the Odyssey – two classic epics written by Homer, they have become the
source of myths and legends of Greece.
4. Mahabharata – is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other
being the Rāmāyaṇa. It narrates the struggle between two groups of cousins in
the Kurukshetra War and the fates of the Kaurava and the Pāṇḍava princes and their
succession. It also contains philosophical and devotional material, such as a
discussion of the four "goals of life" or puruṣārtha. Traditionally attributed to Vyasa,
the Mahābhārata is the longest epic poem known and has been described as "the
longest poem ever written". Its longest version consists of over 100,000 śloka or over
200,000 individual verse lines (each shloka is a couplet), and long prose passages. At
about 1.8 million words in total, the Mahābhārata is roughly ten times the length of
the Iliad and the Odyssey combined.
5. The Canterbury Tales - is a collection of 24 stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written
in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. The tales (mostly
written in verse, although some are in prose) are presented as part of a story-telling
contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together from London to Canterbury to
visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this
contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return.
6. Uncle Tom’s Cabin - Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly, is an anti-
slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel
had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U.S.
and is said to have "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War". It is also believed to
have become the basis for democracy.
7. Divine Comedy - The Divine Comedy is an Italian long narrative poem by Dante
Alighieri, begun in 1308 and completed in 1320, a year before his death in 1321. It is
widely considered to be the preeminent work in Italian literature and one of the
greatest works of world literature. The poem's imaginative vision of the afterlife is
representative of the medieval world-view as it had developed in the Western
Church by the 14th century. It helped establish the Tuscan language, in which it is
written (also in most present-day Italian-market editions), as the standardized Italian
language. It is divided into three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The

narrative describes Dante's travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise
or Heaven, while allegorically the poem represents the soul's journey towards God.
8. El Cid Campeador - Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar was a Spanish knight born in the year
1043, and he is the national hero of Spain. He is perhaps more widely known as “El Cid
Campeador,” (El Cid meaning The Lord, or Master, and Campeador meaning The
Champion, an honorable title rarely given to a man during his lifetime).
Once he became a knight, Rodrigo soon distinguished himself in such a

manner that he was appointed to be the commander of the Castilian army under
King Sancho II. Rodrigo proved himself in several battles in which the Castilian army
was always victorious under his capable leadership, and it was during this time that
he earned the title El Cid, as well as the honorific title of Campeador.
9. The Song of Roland - is an epic poem (chanson de geste) based on the Battle of
Roncevaux Pass in 778, during the reign of Charlemagne. It is the oldest surviving major
work of French literature and exists in various manuscript versions, which testify to its
enormous and enduring popularity in the 12th to 14th centuries.
10. The Book of the Dead - is an ancient Egyptian funerary text, used from the
beginning of the New Kingdom (around 1550 BCE) to around 50 BCE. The original
Egyptian name for the text is translated as Book of Coming Forth by Day or Book of
Emerging Forth into the Light. "Book" is the closest term to describe the loose collection
of texts consisting of a number of magic spells intended to assist a dead person's
journey through the Duat, or underworld, and into the afterlife and written by many
priests over a period of about 1000 years.
11. Book of Days – contains The Analects of Confucius
12. One Thousand and One Nights - One Thousand and One Nights (romanized: ʾAlf
layla wa-layla) is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during
the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the Arabian Nights, from the first
English-language edition (c. 1706 – c. 1721), which rendered the title as The Arabian
Nights' Entertainment.
12 Best Novels Ever Written

1. Anna Karenina
Written by Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, the eight-part towering work of fiction tells the
story of two major characters: a tragic, disenchanted housewife, the titular Anna, who
runs off with her young lover, and a lovestruck landowner named Konstantin Levin,
who struggles in faith and philosophy. Tolstoy molds together thoughtful discussions on
love, pain, and family in Russian society. The novel was especially revolutionary in its
treatment of women, depicting prejudices and social hardships of the time with vivid
emotion.
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2. To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee, believed to be one of the most influential authors to have ever existed,
famously published only a single novel (up until its controversial sequel was published
in 2015 just before her death). Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird was published in 1960. The
novel examines racism in the American South through the innocent wide eyes of a
clever young girl named Jean Louise (“Scout”) Finch. Its iconic characters, most
notably the sympathetic and just lawyer and father Atticus Finch, served as role
models and changed perspectives in the United States at a time when tensions
regarding race were high. To Kill a Mockingbird earned the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in
1961 and was made into an Academy Award-winning film in 1962.
3. The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgelrad’s The Great Gatsby is distinguished as one of the greatest texts for
introducing students to the art of reading literature critically (which means you may
have read it in school). The novel is told from the perspective of a young man named
Nick Carraway who has recently moved to New York City and is befriended by his
eccentric nouveau riche neighbor with mysterious origins, Jay Gatsby.
The Great Gatsby provides an insider’s look into the Jazz Age of the 1920s in United
States history while at the same time critiquing the idea of the “American Dream.”
4. One Hundred Years of Solitude

The late Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez published his most-famous
work, One Hundred Years of Solitude, in 1967. The novel tells the story of seven
generations of the Buendía family and follows the establishment of their town
Macondo until its destruction along with the last of the family’s descendents. In
fantastical form, the novel explores the genre of magic realism by emphasizing the
extraordinary nature of commonplace things while mystical things are shown to be
common. Márquez highlights the prevalence and power of myth and folktale in
relating history and Latin American culture. The novel won many awards for Márquez,
leading the way to his eventual honor of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982 for his
entire body of work, of which One Hundred Years of Solitude is often lauded as his
most triumphant.
5. A Passage to India
E.M. Forster wrote his novel A Passage to India after multiple trips to the country
throughout his early life. The book was published in 1924 and follows a Muslim Indian
doctor named Aziz and his relationships with an English professor, Cyril Fielding, and a
visiting English schoolteacher named Adela Quested. When Adela believes that Aziz
has assaulted her while on a trip to the Marabar caves near the fictional city of
Chandrapore, where the story is set, tensions between the Indian community and the
colonial British community rise. The possibility of friendship and connection between
English and Indian people, despite their cultural differences and imperial tensions, is
explored in the conflict. The novel’s colorful descriptions of nature, the landscape of
India, and the figurative power that they are given within the text solidifies it as a great
work of fiction.
6. Invisible Man
Often confused with H.G. Wells’s science-fiction novella of nearly the same name (just
subtract a “The”), Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is a groundbreaking novel in the
expression of identity for the African American male. The narrator of the novel, a man
who is never named but believes he is “invisible” to others socially, tells the story of his
move from the South to college and then to New York City. In each location he faces
extreme adversity and discrimination, falling into and out of work, relationships, and
questionable social movements in a wayward and ethereal mindset. The novel is
renowned for its surreal and experimental style of writing that explores the symbolism
surrounding African American identity and culture. Invisible Man won the U.S. National
Book Award for Fiction in 1953.
7. Don Quixote
Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote, perhaps the most influential and well-known work
of Spanish literature, was first published in full in 1615. The novel, which is very regularly
regarded as one of the best literary works of all time, tells the story of a man who takes
the name “Don Quixote de la Mancha” and sets off in a fit of obsession over romantic
novels about chivalry to revive the custom and become a hero himself. The character
of Don Quixote has become an idol and somewhat of an archetypal character,
influencing many major works of art, music, and literature since the novel’s
publication. The text has been so influential that a word, quixotic, based on the Don
Quixote character, was created to describe someone who is, “foolishly impractical
especially in the pursuit of ideals; especially: marked by rash lofty romantic ideas or
extravagantly chivalrous action.”
8. Beloved
Toni Morrison’s 1987 spiritual and haunting novel Beloved tells the story of an escaped
slave named Sethe who has fled to Cincinnati, Ohio, in the year 1873. The novel
investigates the trauma of slavery even after freedom has been gained, depicting
Sethe’s guilt and emotional pain after having killed her own child, whom she named
Beloved, to keep her from living life as a slave.
9. Mrs. Dalloway
Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway describes exactly one day in the life of a British socialite
named Clarissa Dalloway. Using a combination of a third-person narration and the
thoughts of various characters, the novel uses a stream-of-consciousness style all the
way through. The result of this style is a deeply personal and revealing look into the
characters’ minds, with the novel relying heavily on character rather than plot to tell
its story.
10. Things Fall Apart

The Western canon of “great literature” often focuses on writers who come from North
America or Europe and often ignores accomplished writers and amazing works of
literature from other parts of the world. Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, published
in 1958, is one such work of African literature that had to overcome the bias of some
literary circles and one that has been able to gain recognition worldwide despite it.
11. Jane Eyre

Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre was initially published in 1847 under the pseudonym
Currer Bell to disguise the fact that the writer was a woman. Fortunately, a lot has
changed with regard to women in literature since 1847, and Brontë now receives the
credit she deserves for one of the most-groundbreaking novels about women in
history. At a time when the author felt compelled to hide her true identity, Jane
Eyre provided a story of individualism for women.
12. The Color Purple

Though the epistolary novel (a novel in the form of letters written by one or more
characters) was most popular before the 19th century, Alice Walker became a
champion of the style with her 1982 Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning
novel The Color Purple. Set in the post-Civil War American South, the novel follows a
young African American girl named Celie into adulthood in letters she writes to God
and to her sister Nettie. Celie faces sexual abuse by her father and eventually her
husband, chronicling her own suffering and growth as well as that of her friends and
family. The novel explores themes of sexism, racism, gender, sexual orientation, and
disability through its grouping of disadvantaged and damaged characters who, over
time, grow to shape their own lives. The story was adapted into an Academy Award-
nominated film in 1985 that, despite widespread critical acclaim, was notoriously
snubbed of all 11 awards it was nominated for.
American Literature
America has a great and proud literary tradition. Novels, plays and poems pour out
of the United States, with increasing numbers of women, African American, Native
American and Hispanic writers making a strong contribution. There have been twelve
literature Nobel Prize laureates, beginning with Sinclair Lewis in 1930 to Bob Dylan, in
2016. Other laureates include such household names as T.S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway
and John Steinbeck. The Americans’ contribution to English literature is incalculable.
The literary tradition began when some of the early English colonists recounted their
adventures in the New World for the benefit of readers in their mother country. Some
of those early writings were quite accomplished, such as the account of his
adventures by Captain John Smith in Virginia and the journalistic histories of John
Winthrop and William Bradford in New England.
It was in the Puritan colonies that published American literature was born, with writers
like Thomas Hooker and Roger Williams producing works to promote their visions of the
religious state. Perhaps the first book to be published by in America was the Bay Psalm
Book in 1640, produced by thirty ministers, led by Richard Mather and John Cotton. It
was followed by passionate histories like Edward Johnson’s Wonder-Working
Providence (1654) and Cotton and Mather’s epic Magnalia Christi Americana (1702).
The American Revolution and the subsequent independence of the United States was
a time of intellectual activity together with social and economic change. The
founding fathers of the new state included the writers, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander
Hamilton, Philip Freneau, the first American lyric poet of distinction, the pamphleteer
Thomas Paine, later an attacker of conventional religion, and the polemicist Francis
Hopkinson, who was also the first American composer. The nineteenth century saw
the spreading and recognition of American writing in Europe with the folk stories of
Washington Irving, the frontier adventures of Fenimore Cooper and the moralising
verse of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Then came the giants, who took even the old
world by storm and are still regarded as being among the greats of Western literature:
Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville and the poet, Walt Whitman.
That romantic trend was interrupted by two of America’s great writers, Henry James
and Mark Twain, who threw the doors open to a new realism and changed American
literature, setting it up for the rich literature that followed and which has not
diminished. James emigrated to Europe and embraced psychological realism in
novels such as Portrait of a Lady (1881), and Twain used national dialects in classics
like Huckleberry Finn (1885).
The twentieth century witnessed the flowering of American literature . Confronted by

the violence of the 20th century, a sense of despair was reflected in the literature, and
the particular conditions of American society with all its diversity found its way into
American writing. In the 1950s, major dramatists, notably Arthur Miller, Edward Albee,
and Sam Shepard, developed the American theatre. African-American writers, such
as Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin, dealt with racial inequality and
violence in contemporary US society while Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison focused
on the 20th century history of African-American women. In the 1960s, novelists such as
Saul Bellow, Philip Roth and Joseph Heller examined the Jewish experience in
American society.
Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 2016. It was a controversial
decision. However, it points to a new development in the progress of American
literature when a songwriter’s work is regarded as literature. There have been several
great American songwriters in the past century and one can find many of the
concerns of modern America in the national songbook but this is the first time that
American songs have been regarded as “literature.” Over seven decades Dylan has
addressed the changes that America has experienced, ranging over war, race,
climate change, and many other phenomena, producing a comprehensive
commentary on the times in which we live. Some of the lyrics of his songs are regarded
as being among the finest poetry of the period.
FAMOUS AMERICAN AUTHORS
1. Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne was a novelist and short story writer. Hawthorne’s works
have been labelled ‘dark romanticism,’ dominated as they are by cautionary
tales that suggest that guilt, sin, and evil are the most inherent natural qualities of
humankind. His novels and stories, set in a past New England, are versions of
historical fiction used as a vehicle to express themes of ancestral sin, guilt and
retribution.
Although his natural inclination was to express himself through the short story form,
he is best known for his novels, and particularly his most famous, The Scarlet Letter,
a romance in an historical setting – puritan Boston, Massachusetts, in the 17th
century. It is the story of the unfortunate Hester Prynne, who gives birth to a child
as a result of an affair with a preacher, and struggles to create a new life of
repentance. The novel explores the themes of sin, guilt and legalism.
Hawthorne’s greatness is due partly to his moral insight. He was deeply concerned
with original sin and guilt and the claims of law and conscience. He delved deeply
and honestly into life, in which he saw much suffering and conflict but also the
redeeming power of love. He is uncompromising in his presentation of those things,
firmly and resolutely scrutinising the psychological and moral facts of the human
condition. His greatest short stories and The Scarlet Letter are characterised by a
depth of psychological and moral insight unequalled by any other American
writer.
2. Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, editor, and literary critic. He is best known
for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and suspense. He is
generally considered the inventor of detective fiction.
Poe’s work as an editor, a poet, and a critic had a profound impact on American
and international literature. In addition to his detective stories he is one of the
originators of horror and science fiction. He is often credited as the architect of the
modern short story. He also focused on the effect of style and structure in a literary
work: as such, he has been seen. French Symbolists such as Mallarmé and Rimbaud
claimed him as their literary model. Baudelaire translated is works into French.
Today, Poe is regarded as one of the first American writers to become a major
figure in world literature. He was unusual in that he strived to earn his living through
writing alone, which resulted in a life of financial hardship and near poverty.
The work that catapulted Poe onto the New York literary scene in January 1845
was The Raven, a poem that was immediately copied, parodied, and
anthologized. He is now one of the most widely read American writers of the 19th
century. His appeal extends from young readers who enjoy being terrified by the
macabre tales of mystery and imagination, such as The Tell-Tale Heart, to literary
critics who appreciate his pioneering analysis in The Philosophy of Composition of
how poetry creates its effect on the reader. Poe’s poems, notably The
Raven and The Bells, are among the most memorable in the English language, and
his stories, among them The Pit and the Pendulum and The Masque of the Red
Death, still terrify readers.
3. Herman Melville
Herman Melville was an American writer of novels, short stories and poems. He is
best known for the novel Moby-Dick and a romantic account of his experiences in
Polynesian life, Typee. His whaling novel, Moby-Dick is often spoken of as ‘the
great American novel’ ’vying with Scott Fitgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Mark
Twain’s Huckleberry Finn for that title.
Melville was the master of dense and complex prose, rich in mystical imagery and
packed with allusions to philosophy, myth, scripture, visual arts and other literary
works. His themes go deep into the human condition: he explores such things as
the impossibility of finding enough common ground for human communication.
His characters are all preoccupied with the quest for that; his plots describe that
pursuit and all his themes and ideas are related to it.
In 2010 a species of extinct giant sperm whale, Livyatan melvillei, was named in
honor of Melville. The paleontologists who discovered the fossil were fans of Moby-
Dick and dedicated their discovery to its author.
4. Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman was a poet, essayist, and journalist who transformed poetry around
the world with his disregard for traditional rhyme and meter and his celebration of
democracy and sensual pleasure. His masterpiece, Leaves of Grass, a collection
of poems, is widely studied by poets, students and academics, set to music,
translated into numerous languages, and is widely quoted.
Whitman began writing what would become Leaves of Grass in 1850, and he
continued writing, editing and revising it until his death. The poems break the
boundaries of poetic form and are generally prosaic. He is often referred to as the
father of free verse. He also used unusual images and symbols in his poetry,
including rotting leaves, tufts of straw, and debris. He wrote openly about death
and sexuality, including prostitution.
5. Emily Dickinson
Unknown as a poet during her lifetime, Emily Dickinson is now regarded by many
as one of the most powerful voices of American culture. Her poetry has inspired
many other writers, including the Brontes. In 1994 the critic, Harold Bloom, listed
her among the twenty-six central writers of Western civilisation.
Emily Dickinson challenged the existing definitions of poetry and what the work of
a poet is. She experimented with language with the aim of freeing it from
conventional restraints. She created a new type of persona for the first person
narrator: the speakers in Dickinson’s poetry are observers who see the
inescapable limitations of their societies as well as their imagined and imaginable
escape from that. To make the abstract concrete and to define
meaning without constraining it she created a distinctive language for expressing
what was not yet realized but possible. In her view while poetry liberated the
individual, it also left her ungrounded.
Emily Dickinson’s most famous poem is Because I could not stop for Death:
Because I could not stop for Death –

He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.
We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility –
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess – in the Ring –
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –
We passed the Setting Sun –
Or rather – He passed Us –
The Dews drew quivering and Chill –
For only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – only Tulle –
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground –
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground –
Since then – ’tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity –
6. Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, far better known as Mark Twain, was an American
writer, businessman, publisher and lecturer. He progressed from his day job as pilot
of a Mississippi riverboat to legend of American literature. His work shows a deep
seriousness and at the same time, it is hilariously satirical. His masterpiece is the
novel, Huckleberry Finn, which is regularly referred to as ‘the great American
novel.’ His body of writings is vast and his quotes on politics and human nature are
staples among speechmakers. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn have never lost their places as required reading in
schools, and they remain templates for young adult fiction. His writing style has had
a profound influence on generations of American writers. In 1935 Ernest
Hemingway wrote “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark
Twain called Huckleberry Finn.”
7. Henry James
Henry James is regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism.
He is noted for writing from a character’s point of view’ which allowed him to
explore consciousness and perception. His imaginative use of point of view, interior
monologue and unreliable narrators brought a new depth to narrative fiction, all
of which were influential on the writing of the novelists who followed him. He was
nominated for the Nobel prize for literature three times.
He wrote 20 novels, 112 tales, 12 plays, several volumes of travel and criticism, and
a great deal of literary journalism over 50 years. His persistent theme was that of an
innocent, exuberant, and democratic America confronting the worldly wisdom
and corruption of Europe’s older, aristocratic culture. His sense of the human scene
was surefooted: he was one of the great prose writers and stylists of his century. He
was a representative of a new realist school of literary art which broke with the
English romantic tradition of which the works of Charles Dickens and William
Makepeace Thackeray were prime examples.
8. T.S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot was an American-born, British, poet, essayist, playwright,

critic, now regarded as one of the twentieth century’s major poets. He received
more rewards than almost any other writer of the past two centuries, including
the Nobel prize, the Dante Gold Medal, the Goethe prize, the US Medal of
Freedom and the British Order of Merit.
Eliot is best known for his great modern 20th century poem, The Waste Land.
Other poems that distinguish his work are Ash Wednesday, The Lovesong of J
Alfred Prufrock, The Four Quartets, and the ever-popular (particularly among
children) Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. His plays – verse dramas – Murder
in the Cathedral and The Cocktail Party – are amogn the landmarks of 20th
century drama.
The Waste Land (1922) is widely regarded as a central text of modernism and has
frequently been described as the most important poem of the 20th century.
Although its experimentalism is demanding, making it difficult to understand
without hard work, it has fundamentally changed the ways in which poetry is
written and read. It is crucial to an understanding of modern culture and a
continual challenge to readers to re-evaluate how they think about the world.
9. F. Scottt Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Fitzgerald was an American novelist, widely regarded as one of the
greatest, if not the greatest, American writers of the 20th century. He is best known
for his novel, The Great Gatsby, which vies for the title ‘Great American Novel’
with Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick.
The Great Gatsby is quite a short novel, ostensibly the story of doomed love
between a man and a woman. But that story is set against the background of the
American Dream crumbling at an historical time of unprecedented prosperity and
materialist excessiveness in the grip of greed and the hollow pursuit of pleasure.
The main idea is that the unrestrained love of money and pleasure corroded the
more noble ideals epitomised by the Abraham Lincoln model.
10. William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner was a Nobel Prize laureate, awarded the literature
prize in 1949. He wrote novels, short stories, poetry, and screenplays. He is known
mainly for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha Country,
Mississippi.
Faulkner is one of the most celebrated American writers, regarded, generally as

the great writer of the American South. Some of his novels are considered to be
among the best in the English language of the 20th century. Light in August,
Absolom, Absolom, As I Lay Dying, and particularly The Sound and the Fury,
appear regularly on lists of the top 100. He was also a prolific writer of short stories.
His first short story collection, These 13 (1931), includes many of his most
acclaimed stories, including A Rose for Emily, Red Leaves, That Evening Sun and
Dry September.
Faulkner was known for his experimental style meticulous attention to diction. In
contrast to the severely paired-down understatement of his contemporary, Ernest
Hemingway, Faulkner’s prose was expanded and detailed. He wrote emotional,
subtle, cerebral, complex stories of a wide variety of characters including former
slaves or descendants of slaves, poor white, agrarian, or working-class Southerners,
and Southern aristocrats, all mixed together to portray a complex community in a
hotbed of race, class and politics.
11. Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier Williams III, known as Tennessee Williams is one of America’s most
popular playwrights, and now regarded as one of the most significant writers of
the twentieth century. He wrote more than thirty plays, some of which have
become classis of Western drama. He also wrote novels and short stories but is
known almost exclusively for his plays.
Williams’ most famous and still enduring play, A Streetcar Named Desire, written in
1947, received the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1948. It has a attracted some of the
century’s best actors and was made into a film, now a classic, starring Marlon
Brando and Vivienne Leigh. Williams also wrote another play that has also become
a classic of American theatre – The Glass Menagerie. He continued to write plays,
several of which take their place as America’s most popular and regularly
performed plays – plays such as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Sweet Bird of Youth,
and Suddenly Last Summ
12. Arthur Miller
Arthur Miller was a playwright and ‘great man’ of American theatre, which he
championed throughout his long life. His many dramas were among the most
popular by American authors and several are considered to be among the best
American plays, among them the classics, The Crucible, All My Sons, A View from
the Bridge and, above all, the iconic American drama, Death of a Salesman. He
also wrote film scripts, notably the classic, The Misfits.
As an individual Miller attracted a great deal of attention during his lifetime,

particularly in his early life, and was frequently in the headlines during the 40s, 50s
and 60s. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, he testified before the House Un-
American Activities Committee, and married Marilyn Monroe. All of those events
were the main talking topics in America when they occurred.
13. Joseph Heller
Joseph Heller was an American writer of satirical novels, short stories and plays.
Although he wrote several acclaimed novels, his reputation rests firmly on his
masterpiece, the great American anti-war satire, Catch 22. The novel introduced
a new era of writing about war – that of criticism, derision and awareness of the
realities of war. It is a highly entertaining ‘laughing out loud’ novel with multiple
comic situations that hurl satire at every aspect of war. Using satire, black humour
and stark, undefeatable logic, the book argues that war is insane, that the military
is insane, and, what is more, that modern life itself is insane too.
14. Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway was a novelist, short story writer, and journalist. He published
seven novels, six short story collections, and two non-fiction works, and won the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. More works, including three novels, four short story
collections, and three non-fiction works, were published posthumously. He
changed the nature of American writing by reacting against the elaborate style
of 19th century writers and by creating a style, in the words of literary critic, Henry
Louis Gates, of Harvard, ‘in which meaning is established through dialogue,
through action, and silences—a fiction in which nothing crucial—or at least very
little—is stated explicitly.’ Some of his works include: The Sun Also Rises, For Whom
The Bell Tolls, The Old Man and the Sea and Across the River and into the Trees.
15. Raymond Chandler
Raymond Chandler was a British-American novelist who wrote several screenplays

and short stories. He published seven novels during his lifetime. The first, The Big
Sleep, was published in 1939. An eighth, Poodle Springs, unfinished at his death,
was completed by another great crime writer, Robert B Parker. Six of Chandler’s
novels have been made into films, some more than once.
Chandler is among the writers who have most influenced American culture, and
particularly the aspect of crime fiction, where his writing defined the genre. That is
particularly remarkable in that his literary output was relatively small. However,
unlike most detective fiction writers before him, Chandler shows his protagonist
being very aware of the physical world around him, with all its details, both
pleasant and unpleasant.
16. Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison’s novels are known for their vivid dialogue, their detailed characters
and epic themes. Her most famous novel is the 1987 novel, Beloved. She was
awarded both the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award in 1988 for Beloved,
and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. In addition to Beloved, three other
novels,The Bluest Eye, Sula and Song of Solomon are now considered classics.
Toni Morrison’s works revolve around both the history and situation in our own time
of African-Americans. Her works often depict difficult circumstances and the dark
side of human life, but ultimately convey integrity and redemption. The way she
reveals the stories of individual lives conveys empathy for her characters. The
central theme of her novels is the black American experience. Her characters
struggle to find themselves and their cultural identity in an unjust society. She uses
fiction to question the endlessness of possibilities and that of answers to such broad
questions as those relating to racism in the U.S. or to an idealistic state of affairs.
She has a hunger for racial justice and her innovative techniques will never cease
to challenge her readers’ attitudes.
17. Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a Russian-American novelist, and also a

famous entomologist, specialising in butterflies, a topic on which he wrote several
academic books. He wrote nine novels in Russian, but it was when he began
writing in English that he achieved international recognition. His remarkable
achievement as a prose writer was that, as a Russian, he became one of the
greatest writers of English literary prose. His most famous novel, Lolita, has become
an American classic.
18. Flannery O’Connor
Mary Flannery O’Connor wrote two novels and thirty-two short stories, and also
several reviews and commentaries. Her reputation is based mainly on her short
stories. She was a Southern writer and relied heavily on regional settings and
typically southern characters. She was strongly Roman Catholic, which informed
her exploration of ethics and morality.
Flannery O’Connor has been compared with Mark Twain regarding the realistic
treatment of both the comic and the tragic in the Southern context. Like Twain,
she accurately captured the scenes, manners, and language of the rapidly
changing South of her time. Her prose style has been compared with those of
Jonathan Swift and George Orwell, sharing with them clear, pungent and
memorable prose.
19. John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck was the author of 16 novels and various other works, including
five short story collections. He is widely known for the novels, East of Eden, Of Mice
and Men, and particularly, the Puliter Prize winning novel, The Grapes of Wrath, his
masterpiece, which is one of the great American novels: it has sold more than 15
million copies so far. Several of the novels are considered classics of Western
literature. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962.
One of Steinbeck’s major themes, which he frequently returned to, is humans’

relationship to the land. In To a God Unknown and East of Eden he explores
identity through the ownership of land as part of the American dream. In Tortilla
Flat, Cannery Row and Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck focuses on friendship and
explores the moral compromises that friendship can create. In Of Mice and
Men, The Grapes of Wrath, The Pearl and The Moon Is Down he explores the
themes of rebellion, disenfranchisement and the struggle of integrity against
corruption.
20. John Updike
John Updike was a novelist, short story writer and poet. He was also a literary and
art critic. He published more than twenty novels, numerous short-story collections,
eight volumes of poetry and many children’s books. He is most famous for his
‘Rabbit‘ series – novels that chronicle the life of his protagonist, Harry Angstrom –
in which Updike presented his progress over the course of several decades. The
series is thus a chronicle of middle class American life of over more than half a
century and, more important, a social and political history of America during those
decades.
Updike described the subject of his writing as “the American small town, protestant
middle class.” He is the chronicler of American middle class domesticity, the life
lived as most people experience it. His novels and short stories detail that life with
nothing too insignificant to include, including his characters’ sex lives, in and
outside of marriage. By exploring the ordinary lives of his characters he reveals the
largest mysteries of human life. His characters often experience personal turmoil
and encounter, and have to respond to, crises around religion, marital infidelity,
family issues and problems related to their occupations.
21. Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut was an American writer who published fourteen novels, three short
story collections, five plays, and five works of non-fiction. He is most famous for his
novel Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) which has become an American classic.
Slaughterhouse-Five is a semi-autobiographical novel based on his experience as

a prisoner of war who survived the allies’ bombing of Dresden. Darkly satirical, it is
Vonnegut’s most influential novel and that novel alone warrants its author’s place
among the great American fiction writers. It has been adapted for film, television,
stage and radio. The book is generally regarded as a postmodern metafictional
novel due to Vonnegut’s literary technique. There is manipulation of time, a strong
intertextual component in the appearance of characters from other novels, the
direct intervention of the author in the narrative, and several other postmodern
features.
22. Maya Angelou
An acclaimed American poet, storyteller, activist, and autobiographer, Maya

Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri. Angelou had a broad
career as a singer, dancer, actress, composer, and Hollywood’s first female black
director, but became most famous as a writer, editor, essayist, playwright, and
poet.
Angelou’s most famous work, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), deals with
her early years in Long Beach, St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas, where she lived with
her brother and paternal grandmother. In one of its most evocative (and
controversial) moments, Angelou describes how she was first cuddled then raped
by her mother’s boyfriend when she was just seven years old. When the man was
murdered by her uncles for his crime, Angelou felt responsible, and stopped
talking. Angelou remained mute for five years, but developed a love for language.
23. Robert Frost
Born in San Francisco, the four-time Pulitzer Prize winner wrote much of his poetry
about rural New England. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his
command of American colloquial speech, Frost frequently wrote about settings
from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine
complex social and philosophical themes. Some of his best-known poems—”After
Apple-Picking,” “Mending Wall,” “Birches,” “The Road Not Taken” and “Stopping
by Woods on a Snowy Evening”—were inspired by his life and observations in
Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont. He became one of America's rare
"public literary figures, almost an artistic institution." He was awarded
the Congressional Gold Medal in 1960 for his poetic works. On July 22, 1961, Frost
was named poet laureate of Vermont.
24. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher,

and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He
was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the
countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through
dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United
States.
Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his
contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of transcendentalism
in his 1836 essay "Nature". Following this work, he gave a speech entitled "The
American Scholar" in 1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. considered to be
America's "intellectual Declaration of Independence."
ENGLISH LITERATURE: Its Development
Old English, Middle English and Chaucer
Old English English, as we know it, descends from the language spoken by the
north Germanic tribes who settled in England from the 5th century A.D. onwards.
They had no writing (except runes, used as charms) until they learned the Latin
alphabet from Roman missionaries. The earliest written works in Old English (as their
language is now known to scholars) were probably composed orally at first, and
may have been passed on from speaker to speaker before being written. We
know the names of some of the later writers (Cædmon, Ælfric and King Alfred) but
most writing is anonymous. Old English literature is mostly chronicle and poetry -
lyric, descriptive but chiefly narrative or epic.
Middle English and Chaucer
From 1066 onwards, the language is known to scholars as Middle English. Ideas and
themes from French and Celtic literature appear in English writing at about this
time, but the first great name in English literature is that of Geoffrey Chaucer
(?1343-1400). Chaucer introduces the iambic pentameter line, the rhyming
couplet and other rhymes used in Italian poetry (a language in which rhyming is
arguably much easier than in English, thanks to the frequency of terminal vowels).
Some of Chaucer's work is prose and some is lyric poetry, but his greatest work is
mostly narrative poetry, which we find in Troilus and Criseyde and The Canterbury
Tales. Other notable mediaeval works are the anonymous Pearl and Gawain and
the Green Knight (probably by the same author) and William Langlands' Piers
Plowman.
Tudor lyric poetry
Modern lyric poetry in English begins in the early 16th century with the work of Sir
Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547). Wyatt,
who is greatly influenced by the Italian, Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) introduces
the sonnet and a range of short lyrics to English, while Surrey (as he is known)
develops unrhymed pentameters (or blank verse) thus inventing the verse form
which will be of great use to contemporary dramatists. A flowering of lyric poetry
in the reign of Elizabeth comes with such writers as Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586),
Edmund Spenser (1552-1599), Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618), Christopher Marlowe
(1564-1593) and William Shakespeare (1564-1616). The major works of the time are
Spenser's Faerie Queene, Sidney's Astrophil and Stella and Shakespeare's sonnets.
Renaissance drama
The first great English dramatist is Marlowe. Before the 16th century English drama
meant the amateur performances of Bible stories by craft guilds on public holidays.
Marlowe's plays (Tamburlaine; Dr. Faustus; Edward II and The Jew of Malta) use the
five act structure and the medium of blank verse, which Shakespeare finds so
productive. Shakespeare develops and virtually exhausts this form, his Jacobean
successors producing work which is rarely performed today, though some pieces
have literary merit, notably The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil by John
Webster (1580-1625) and The Revenger's Tragedy by Cyril Tourneur (1575-1626). The
excessive and gratuitous violence of Jacobean plays leads to the clamour for
closing down the theatres, which is enacted by parliament after the Civil war.
Metaphysical poetry
The greatest of Elizabethan lyric poets is John Donne (1572-1631), whose short love
poems are characterized by wit and irony, as he seeks to wrest meaning from
experience. The preoccupation with the big questions of love, death and religious
faith marks out Donne and his successors who are often called metaphysical
poets. (This name, coined by Dr. Samuel Johnson in an essay of 1779, was revived
and popularized by T.S. Eliot, in an essay of 1921. It can be unhelpful to modern
students who are unfamiliar with this adjective, and who are led to think that these
poets belonged to some kind of school or group - which is not the case.) After his
wife's death, Donne underwent a serious religious conversion, and wrote much fine
devotional verse. The best known of the other metaphysicals are George Herbert
(1593-1633), Andrew Marvell (1621-1678) and Henry Vaughan (1621-1695).
Epic poetry
Long narrative poems on heroic subjects mark the best work of classical Greek
(Homer's Iliad and Odyssey) and Roman (Virgil's Æneid) poetry. John Milton (1608-
1674) who was Cromwell's secretary, set out to write a great biblical epic, unsure
whether to write in Latin or English, but settling for the latter in Paradise Lost. John
Dryden (1631-1700) also wrote epic poetry, on classical and biblical subjects.
Though Dryden's work is little read today it leads to a comic parody of the epic
form, or mock-heroic. The best poetry of the mid-18th century is the comic writing
of Alexander Pope (1688-1744). Pope is the best-regarded comic writer and satirist
of English poetry. Among his many masterpieces, one of the more accessible is The
Rape of the Lock (seekers of sensation should note that “rape” here has its archaic
sense of “removal by force”; the “lock” is a curl of the heroine's hair). Serious poetry
of the period is well represented by the neo-classical Thomas Gray (1716-1771)
whose Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard virtually perfects the elegant style
favoured at the time.
Restoration comedy
On the death of Oliver Cromwell (in 1658) plays were no longer prohibited. A new
kind of comic drama, dealing with issues of sexual politics among the wealthy and
the bourgeois, arose. This is Restoration Comedy, and the style developed well
beyond the restoration period into the mid-18th century almost. The total number
of plays performed is vast, and many lack real merit, but the best drama uses the
restoration conventions for a serious examination of contemporary morality. A play
which exemplifies this well is The Country Wife by William Wycherley (1640-1716).
Prose fiction and the novel
Prose narratives were written in the 16th century, but the novel as we know it could
not arise, in the absence of a literate public. The popular and very contemporary
medium for narrative in the 16th century is the theatre. The earliest novels reflect a
bourgeois view of the world because this is the world of the authors and their
readers (working people are depicted, but patronizingly, not from inside
knowledge).
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), wrote satires in verse and prose. He is best-known for
the extended prose work Gulliver's Travels, in which a fantastic account of a series
of travels is the vehicle for satirizing familiar English institutions, such as religion,
politics and law. Another writer who uses prose fiction, this time much more
naturalistic, to explore other questions of politics or economics is Daniel Defoe
(1661-1731), author of Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders.
The first English novel is generally accepted to be Pamela (1740), by Samuel

Richardson (1689-1761): this novel takes the form of a series of letters; Pamela, a
virtuous housemaid resists the advances of her rich employer, who eventually
marries her. Richardson's work was almost at once satirized by Henry Fielding (1707-
1754) in Joseph Andrews (Joseph is depicted as the brother of Richardson's
Pamela Andrews) and Tom Jones. Another important novelist is Laurence Sterne
(1713-68), author of Tristram Shandy.
After Fielding, the novel is dominated by the two great figures of Sir Walter Scott
(1771-1832) and Jane Austen (1775-1817), who typify, respectively, the new
regional, historical romanticism and the established, urbane classical views. Novels
depicting extreme behaviour, madness or cruelty, often in historically remote or
exotic settings are called Gothic. They are ridiculed by Austen in Northanger
Abbey but include one undisputed masterpiece, Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
(1797-1851).
Romanticism
A movement in philosophy but especially in literature, romanticism is the revolt of

the senses or passions against the intellect and of the individual against the
consensus. Its first stirrings may be seen in the work of William Blake (1757-1827),
and in continental writers such as the Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau
and the German playwrights Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller and Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe.
The publication, in 1798, by the poets William Wordsworth (1770-1850) and Samuel
Taylor Coleridge (1772- 1834) of a volume entitled Lyrical Ballads is a significant
event in English literary history, though the poems were poorly received and few
books sold. The elegant Latinisms of Gray are dropped in favour of a kind of English
closer to that spoken by real people (supposedly). Actually, the attempts to render
the speech of ordinary people are not wholly convincing. Robert Burns (1759 1796)
writes lyric verse in the dialect of lowland Scots (a variety of English). After
Shakespeare, Burns is perhaps the most often quoted of writers in English. His Auld
Lang Syne is sung every New Year's Eve.
The work of the later romantics John Keats (1795-1821) and his friend Percy Bysshe
Shelley (1792-1822; husband of Mary Shelley) is marked by an attempt to make
language beautiful, and by an interest in remote history and exotic places. George
Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) uses romantic themes, sometimes comically, to
explain contemporary events. Romanticism begins as a revolt against established
views, but eventually becomes the established outlook. Wordsworth becomes a
kind of national monument, while the Victorians make what was at first
revolutionary seem familiar, domestic and sentimental.
Victorian poetry
The major poets of the Victorian era are Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) and
Robert Browning (1812-1889). Both are prolific and varied, and their work defies
easy classification. Tennyson makes extensive use of classical myth and Arthurian
legend, and has been praised for the beautiful and musical qualities of his writing.
Browning's chief interest is in people; he uses blank verse in writing dramatic
monologues in which the speaker achieves a kind of self-portraiture: his subjects
are both historical individuals (Fra Lippo Lippi, Andrea del Sarto) and
representative types or caricatures (Mr. Sludge the Medium).
Other Victorian poets of note include Browning's wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning
(1806-1861) and Christina Rossetti (1830-1894). Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
is notable for his use of what he calls “sprung rhythm”; as in Old English verse
syllables are not counted, but there is a pattern of stresses. Hopkins' work was not
well-known until very long after his death.
The Victorian novel
The rise of the popular novel
The growth of literacy in the Victorian era leads to enormous diversification in the
subjects and settings of the novel. In the 19th century, adult literacy increases
markedly: attempts to provide education by the state, and self-help schemes are
partly the cause and partly the result of the popularity of the novel. Publication in
instalments means that works are affordable for people of modest means. The
change in the reading public is reflected in a change in the subjects of novels: the
high bourgeois world of Austen gives way to an interest in characters of humble
origins. The great novelists write works which in some ways transcend their own
period, but which in detail very much explore the preoccupations of their time.
The greatest English novelist of the 19th century, and possibly of all time, is Charles
Dickens (1812-1870). The complexity of his best work, the variety of tone, the use
of irony and caricature create surface problems for the modern reader, who may
not readily persist in reading. But Great Expectations, Bleak House, Our Mutual
Friend and Little Dorrit are works with which every student should be acquainted.
Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855) and her sisters Emily (1818-1848) and Anne (1820-
1849) are understandably linked together, but their work differs greatly. Charlotte
is notable for several good novels, among which her masterpiece is Jane Eyre.
Emily Brontë's Wüthering Heights is a strange work, which enjoys almost cult status.
Its themes of obsessive love and self-destructive passion have proved popular with
the 20th century reader. After the middle of the century, the novel, as a form,
becomes firmly-established, notable authors being Anthony Trollope (1815-82),
Wilkie Collins (1824-89), William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63). Among the best
novels are Collins's The Moonstone and Thackeray's Vanity Fair
Later Victorian novelists
The Turn of the Century concerns begin to show in late Victorian novelist such as
George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans; 1819-80) and Thomas Hardy (1840-1928). Eliot with
The Mill on the Floss, Adam Bede and Middlemarch, and Hardy with The Mayor of
Casterbridge, The Return of the Native, Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the
Obscure begin to show a negative portrait of Victorian society and their stories
end with the death of their protagonists, who cannot escape their black destinies.
Early 20th century poets
W.B. (William Butler) Yeats (1865-1939) is one of two figures who dominate modern
poetry, the other being T.S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot (1888-1965). Yeats was Irish; Eliot
was born in the USA but settled in England, and took UK citizenship in 1927. Yeats
uses conventional lyric forms, but explores the connection between modern
themes and classical and romantic ideas. Eliot uses elements of conventional
forms, within an unconventionally structured whole in his greatest works. Where
Yeats is prolific as a poet, Eliot's reputation largely rests on two long and complex
works: The Waste Land (1922) and Four Quartets (1943).
The work of these two has overshadowed the work of the best late Victorian,
Edwardian and Georgian poets, some of whom came to prominence during the
First World War. Among these are Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), A.E.
Housman (1859-1936), Edward Thomas (1878-1917), Rupert Brooke (1887-1915),
Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967), Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) and Isaac Rosenberg
(1890-1918).
Early modern writers
The late Victorian and early modern periods are spanned by two novelists of
foreign birth: the American Henry James (1843-1916) and the Pole Joseph Conrad
(Josef Korzeniowski; 1857-1924). James relates character to issues of culture and
ethics, but his style can be opaque; Conrad's narratives may resemble adventure
stories in incident and setting, but his real concern is with issues of character and
morality. The best of their work would include James's The Portrait of a Lady and
Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Nostromo and The Secret Agent. We should also
include R.L. Stevenson (1850-94) writer of Kidnappe, Treasure Island, and The
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), author of The
Importance of Being Earnest, and The Portrait of Dorian Gray.
Other notable writers of the early part of the century include George Bernard Shaw
(1856-1950), H.G. Wells (1866-1946), and E.M. Forster (1879-1970). Shaw was an
essay-writer, language scholar and critic, but is best remembered as a playwright.
Of his many plays, the best-known is Pygmalion (even better known today in its
form as the musical My Fair Lady). Wells is celebrated as a popularizer of science,
but his best novels explore serious social and cultural themes, The History of Mr. Polly
being perhaps his masterpiece. Forster's novels include Howard's End, A Room with
a View and A Passage to India.
More radically modern writing is found in the novels of James Joyce (1882-1941),
of Virginia Woolf (1882- 1941), and of D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930). Where Joyce and
Woolf challenge traditional narrative methods of viewpoint and structure,
Lawrence is concerned to explore human relationships more profoundly than his
predecessors, attempting to marry the insights of the new psychology with his own
acute observation. Working class characters are presented as serious and
dignified; their manners and speech are not objects of ridicule. Other notable
novelists include George Orwell (1903-50), Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966), Graham
Greene (1904- 1991) and the 1983 Nobel prize-winner, William Golding (1911-1993).
Poetry in the later 20th century
Between the two wars, a revival of romanticism in poetry is associated with the
work of W.H. (Wystan Hugh) Auden (1907-73), Louis MacNeice (1907-63) and Cecil
Day-Lewis (1904-72). Auden seems to be a major figure on the poetic landscape,
but is almost too contemporary to see in perspective. The Welsh poet, Dylan
Thomas (1914-53) is notable for strange effects of language, alternating from
extreme simplicity to massive overstatement. Among poets who have achieved
celebrity in the second half of the century is the 1995 Irish Nobel laureate Seamus
Heaney (b. 1939).
IN A NUTSHELL: AFRICAN LITERATURE

African literature is literature of or from Africa and includes oral literature (or
"orature", in the term coined by Ugandan scholar Pio Zirimu. Oral literature
(or orature) may be in prose or verse. The prose is often mythological or historical
and can include tales of the trickster character. Storytellers in Africa sometimes
use call-and-response techniques to tell their stories. Poetry, often sung,
includes: narrative epic, occupational verse, ritual verse, praise poems of rulers
and other prominent people. Praise singers, bards sometimes known as "griots", tell
their stories with music. Also recited, often sung, are love songs, work
songs, children's songs, along with epigrams, proverbs and riddles. These oral
traditions exist in many languages including Fula, Swahili, Hausa, and Wolof.
Pre-colonial Literature
Examples of pre-colonial African literature are numerous. In Ethiopia, there is a

substantial literature written in Ge'ezgoing back at least to the fourth century AD; the
best-known work in this tradition is the Kebra Negast, or "Book of Kings." One popular
form of traditional African folktale is the "trickster" story, in which a small animal uses its
wits to survive encounters with larger creatures. Examples of animal tricksters
include Anansi, a spider in the folklore of the Ashanti people of Ghana; Ijàpá,
a tortoise in Yoruba folklore of Nigeria; and Sungura, a hare found in central and East
African folklore.[7] Other works in written form are abundant, namely in north Africa,
the Sahel regions of west Africa and on the Swahili coast. From Timbuktu alone, there
are an estimated 300,000 or more manuscripts tucked away in various libraries and
private collections,[8] mostly written in Arabic but some in the native languages
(namely Fula and Songhai).[9] Many were written at the famous University of Timbuktu.
The material covers a wide array of topics, including astronomy, poetry, law, history,
faith, politics, and philosophy.[10] Swahili literature similarly, draws inspiration from
Islamic teachings but developed under indigenous circumstances. One of the most
renowned and earliest pieces of Swahili literature being Utendi wa Tambuka or "The
Story of Tambuka".
In Islamic times, North Africans such as Ibn Khaldun attained great distinction
within Arabic literature. Medieval north Africa boasted universities such as those
of Fes and Cairo, with copious amounts of literature to supplement them.
Colonial African Literature

The African works best known in the West from the periods of colonization and the
slave trade are primarily slave narratives, such as Olaudah Equiano's The Interesting
Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789).
In the colonial period, Africans exposed to Western languages began to write in those
tongues. In 1911, Joseph Ephraim Casely Hayford (also known as Ekra-Agiman) of
the Gold Coast (now Ghana) published what is probably the first African novel written
in English, Ethiopia Unbound: Studies in Race Emancipation.[11] Although the work
moves between fiction and political advocacy, its publication and positive reviews in
the Western press mark a watershed moment in African literature.
During this period, African plays written in English began to emerge. Herbert Isaac
Ernest Dhlomo of South Africapublished the first English-language African play, The Girl
Who Killed to Save: Nongqawuse the Liberator in 1935. In 1962, Ngũgĩ wa
Thiong'o of Kenya wrote the first East African drama, The Black Hermit, a cautionary
tale about "tribalism" (discrimination between African tribes).
Among the first pieces of African literature to receive significant worldwide critical
acclaim was Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe. Published in 1958, late in the
colonial era, Things Fall Apart analyzed the effect of colonialism on traditional African
society.
African literature in the late colonial period (between the end of World War I and
independence) increasingly showed themes of liberation, independence, and
(among Africans in French-controlled territories) négritude. One of the leaders of the
négritude movement, the poet and eventual President of Senegal, Léopold Sédar
Senghor, published in 1948 the first anthology of French-language poetry written by
Africans, Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache de langue
française (Anthology of the New Black and Malagasy Poetry in the French
Language), featuring a preface by the French existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre.[13]
For many writers this emphasis was not restricted to their publishing. Many, indeed,
suffered deeply and directly: censured for casting aside his artistic responsibilities in
order to participate actively in warfare, Christopher Okigbo was killed in battle
for Biafra against the Nigerian movement of the 1960s' civil war; Mongane Wally
Serote was detained under South Africa's Terrorism Act No 83 of 1967 between 1969
and 1970, and subsequently released without ever having stood trial; in London in
1970, his countryman Arthur Norje committed suicide; Malawi's Jack Mapanje was
incarcerated with neither charge nor trial because of an off-hand remark at a
university pub; and, in 1995, Ken Saro-Wiwa was hanged by the Nigerian junta.
Postcolonial African Literature

With liberation and increased literacy since most African nations gained their
independence in the 1950s and 1960s, African literature has grown dramatically in
quantity and in recognition, with numerous African works appearing in Western
academic curricula and on "best of" lists compiled at the end of the 20th century.
African writers in this period wrote both in Western languages (notably English, French,
and Portuguese) and in traditional African languages such as Hausa.
Ali A. Mazrui and others mention seven conflicts as themes: the clash between Africa's
past and present, between tradition and modernity, between indigenous and foreign,
between individualism and community, between socialism and capitalism, between
development and self-reliance and between Africanity and humanity.[14] Other
themes in this period include social problems such as corruption, the economic
disparities in newly independent countries, and the rights and roles of women. Female
writers are today far better represented in published African literature than they were
prior to independence.
In 1986, Wole Soyinka became the first post-independence African writer to win
the Nobel Prize in literature. Previously, Algerian-born Albert Camus had been
awarded the prize in 1957
Contemporary Developments
There are a lot of literary productions in Africa since the beginning of the current
decade (2010), even though readers do not always follow in large numbers. One can
also notice the appearance of certain writings that break with the academic style. In
addition, the shortage of literary critics can be explored on the continent
nowadays. Literary events seem to be very fashionable, including literary awards,
some of which can be distinguished by their original concepts. The case of the Grand
Prix of Literary Associations is quite illustrative.
10 Best Contemporary African Writers

1. Chinua Achebe
One of the world’s most widely recognized and praised writers, Chinua Achebe
wrote some of the most extraordinary works of the 20th century. His most famous
novel,Things Fall Apart (1958), is a devastating depiction of the clash between
traditional tribal values and the effects of colonial rule, as well as the tension
between masculinity and femininity in highly patriarchal societies. Achebe is also
a noted literary critic, particularly known for his passionate critique of Joseph
Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899), in which he accuses the popular novel of
rampant racism through its othering of the African continent and its people.
2. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Born in Nigeria in 1977, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is part of a new generation of
African writers taking the literary world by storm. Adichie’s works are primarily
character-driven, interweaving the background of her native Nigeria and social
and political events into the narrative. Her novel Purple Hibiscus (2003) is a
bildungsroman, depicting the life experience of Kambili and her family during a
military coup, while her latest work Americanah (2013) is an insightful portrayal of
Nigerian immigrant life and race relations in America and the western world.
Adichie’s works have been met with overwhelming praise and have been
nominated for and won numerous awards, including the Orange Prize and Booker
Prize.
3. Ayi Kwei Armah
Ayi Kwei Armah’s novels are known for their intense, powerful depictions of political
devastation and social frustration in Armah’s native Ghana, told from the point of
view of the individual. His works were greatly influenced by French existential
philosophers, such as Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, and as such hold themes
of despair, disillusionment and irrationality. His most famous work, The Beautyful
Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968) centers around an unnamed protagonist who
attempts to understand his self and his country in the wake of post-independence.
4. Mariama Bâ
One of Africa’s most influential women authors, Mariama Bâ is known for her
powerful feminist texts, which address the issues of gender inequality in her native
Senegal and wider Africa. Bâ herself experienced many of the prejudices facing
women: she struggled for an education against her traditional grandparents, and
was left to look after her nine children after divorcing a prominent politician. Her
anger and frustration at the patriarchal structures which defined her life spill over
into her literature: her novel So Long A Letter (1981) depicts, simultaneously, its
protagonist’s strength and powerlessness within marriage and wider society.
5. Nuruddin Farah
Born in Somalia in 1945, Nuruddin Farah has written numerous plays, novels and
short stories, all of which revolve around his experiences of his native country. The
title of his first novel From a Crooked Rib (1970) stems from a Somalian proverb
“God created woman from a crooked rib, and anyone who trieth to straighten it,
breaketh it”, and is a commentary on the sufferings of women in Somalian society
through the narrative of a young woman trapped in an unhappy marriage. His
subsequent works feature similar social criticism, dealing with themes of war and
post-colonial identity.
6. Aminatta Forna
Born in Glasgow but raised in Sierra Leone, Aminatta Forna first drew attention for
her memoir The Devil That Danced on Water (2003), an extraordinarily brave
account of her family’s experiences living in war-torn Sierra Leone, and in
particular her father’s tragic fate as a political dissident. Forna has gone on to write
several novels, each of them critically acclaimed: her work The Memory of
Love (2010) juxtaposes personal stories of love and loss within the wider context of
the devastation of the Sierre Leone civil war, and was nominated for the Orange
Prize for Fiction.
7. Nadine Gordimer
One of the apartheid era’s most prolific writers, Nadine Gordimer’s works
powerfully explore social, moral, and racial issues in a South Africa under apartheid
rule. Despite winning a Nobel Prize in Literature for her prodigious skills in portraying
a society interwoven with racial tensions, Gordimer’s most famous and
controversial works were banned from South Africa for daring to speak out against
the oppressive governmental structures of the time. Her novel Burger’s
Daughter follows the struggles of a group of anti-apartheid activists, and was read
in secret by Nelson Mandela during his time on Robben Island.

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PHILIPPINE LITERATURE

PRE-COLONIAL PERIOD Early Times – 1564

RIDDLES (bugtong) – battle of wits among participants. It is called Tigmo in Cebu,

PROVERBS (salawikain) – wise sayings that contain a metaphor used to teach as a

a. Hele or oyayi -lullaby

b. Ambahan (Mangyan) –about human relationships and social entertainment

c. Kalusan (Ivatan) – work songs

d. Tagay (Cebuano and Waray) – drinking song e. Kanogan (Cebuano) – song of

Biag ni Lam-ang (Ilocano)

1|LET GenEd Literature

SPANISH COLONIZATION PERIOD 1565-1863

RELIGIOUS LITERATURE – religious lyrics written by Ladino poets or those versed

SECULAR LITERATURE – non-religious literature

a. Awit – colorful tales of chivalry made for singing and chanting.

Spanish Colonization Period also has oral and written literature.

ORAL LITERATURE – songs, religious drama, drama

SONGS – a composition for voice and voices performed by singing.

DRAMA –enacted in front of live audiences. It is also known as play.

2|LET GenEd Literature

SHORT STORIES – a brief work of literature

NOTABLE FILIPINOS DURING THE SPANISH COLONIZATION PERIOD IN PHILIPPINE

JOSE DELA CRUZ (1746-1829) – he was the foremost proponent of the

FRANCISO BALTAZAR (1788-1862) – popularly called Balagtas, he is the

NATIONALISTIC/ PROPAGANDA AND REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 1864-1896

Literary Forms under this period include propaganda literature and

PROPAGANDA LITERATURE – reformatory in objective.

a. POLITICAL ESSAYS – satires, editorials and news articles were written to

REVOLUTIONARY LITERATURE – more propagandistic than literary as it is more

AMERICAN COLONIZATION PERIOD 1901-1946

3|LET GenEd Literature

C. PERIOD OF EMERGENCE (1920-1930)

The best-known magazines that capitalized on short stories and poems

The JAPANESE Period (1941-1945 ) and The REPUBLIC (1946- 1985)

4|LET GenEd Literature

PHILIPPINE LITERATURE: THE CONTEMPORARY PERIOD

THE REBIRTH OF FREEDOM (1946-1970)

1. HEART OF THE ISLANDS (1947) –a collection of poems by Manuel Viray

2. PHILIPPINES CROSS SECTION (1950) –a collection of prose and poetry by

3. PROSE AND POEMS (1952) –by Nick Joaquin

4. PHILIPPINE WRITING (1953) –by T.D. Agcaoili

5. PHILIPPINE HARVEST –by Amador Daguio

6. HORIZONS LEAST (1967) –a collection of works by the professors of UE, mostly

5|LET GenEd Literature

7. WHO SPOKE OF COURAGE IN HIS SLEEP –by NVM Gonzales

8. SPEAK NOT, SPEAK ALSO –by Conrado V. Pedroche

THE NEW FILIPINO LITERATURE DURING THIS PERIOD

Philippine literature in Tagalog was revived during this period. Most

Period of Activism (1970-1972)

The Literary Revolution

PALANCA AWARDEES FOR LITERATURE IN ENGLISH

Established in 1950, the Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature had

PERIOD OF THE NEW SOCIETY (1972-1980)

6|LET GenEd Literature

RADIO AND TELEVISION. Radio continued to be patronized during this period.

COMICS, MAGAZINES AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS

OVERVIEW OF THE LITERATUE DURING THE NEW SOCIETY

7|LET GenEd Literature

PHILIPPINE FILMS DURING THE PERIOD

MASTERWORKS OF THE WORLD

8|LET GenEd Literature

9|LET GenEd Literature

Once he became a knight, Rodrigo soon distinguished himself in such a

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