Literature Under The Republic (1946-1985) History is not the story of heroes entirely.

It is often the story of cruelty and injustice and shortsightedness. There are monsters, there is evil, there is betrayal. Thats why people should read Shakespeare and Dickens as well as historythey will find the best, the worst, the height of noble attainment and the depths of depravity - David McCullough

Literature Under The Republic (1946-1985)

Philippine economy in ruins and it seemed that massive foreign aid could rebuild it. With the life of the Filipinos hanging in the balance because of hunger, insecurity and terror. Many Filipinos resorted to collaborating with the Japanese for reasons such as politics, survival and opportunity. After the Pacific War ended, collaborators were given amnesty by President Manual Roxas. The amnesty was a result of the US colonialisms decision to hush up the issue on collaboration.

The Japanese occupation leaves the

Literature Under The Republic (1946-1985)

This in turn put the Filipino ruling elites credibility at stake because ambiguities and irregularities that was not resolved. The US colonialist also linked the issue of collaboration not as a political will but as a means of survival (expediency). If a rigid trial was done to the detractors, many of the Filipino ruling elite would loose their credibility and this was not favorable to the US colonizers because at that time the elites were the intermediary between the American colonizers and the Filipinos. The elites had a lot of influence to the masses, and the US wanted to tap their services and use them as leverage.

Literature Under The Republic (1946-1985)

To secure the new republics alliance with the

US after its independence was granted a series of treaties and agreements were signed, and these strengthened the ties between the two countries. The Bell Trade act, imposed free trade which enforced imports from US for 28 years and parity rights allowing US citizens to have equal rights to access to the countries natural resources. The Philippine Rehabilitation Act together with the Bell Trade act which allowed the US to use the Philippines for their military bases and control of the Philippine military.

Literature Under The Republic (1946-1985)

To secure the new republics alliance with the US after its independence was granted a series of treaties and agreements were signed, and these strengthened the ties between the two countries. The Bell Trade act, imposed free trade which enforced imports from US for 28 years and parity rights allowing US citizens to have equal rights to access to the countries natural resources. The Philippine Rehabilitation Act together with the Bell Trade act which allowed the US to use the Philippines for their military bases and control of the Philippine military.


Maganda Pa Ang Daigdig (Novel) Bartolina (Poem) May Lalim Ang Bats (Novel) Walking Home (Poem) Bamboo Dancers (Novel) In Sipolog (Novel) Ako ang Daigdig (Poem) Bangkang Papel (Short Story) Summer Solstice (Short Story)

May Lalim ang Batis

(Novel)

May Lalim ang Batis is taken from the novel Maganda Pa ang Daigdig written in 1955. This novel focuses on the life of Lino Rivera a son of a farmer who suffered under Feudalism.

The Bamboo Dancers

(Novel)

Published in 1960, roughly fifteen years after the US granted independence to the Philippines. Supposedly to be indorsed in 1942 but Japanese came, Pacific War started.

My Brother, My Executioner
(Novel)

My Brother, My Executioner, tackles the narrative about two half brothers Luis Asperri and Victor. In the story, the two brothers became enemies.

Tatarin (Summer Solstice)

(Short Story)

By Nick Joaquin

A classic story which depicts a collision between raw instinct and refined culture.The story narrates a ritual performed by women to invoke the gods to grant the blessing of fertility by dancing around a Balete tree that was already a century old.

Walking Home (Poem)

By: Emmanuel S. Torres At midnight I and a stranger drowse toward separate homes. The crunch of small stones underfoot reminds us how far we are from each other, although our shadows would include each other more than once, streaming forward from the streetlight behind us brightening the loneliness of the steps toward sleep. At the fork of the road, we part ways, deepening into night.

Was Filipino writer known for his novels such as Ama and Daluyong. He was awarded the National Artist for Filipino Literature in 2009. Francisco also received the Republic Cultural Heritage Award for Literature in 1970.

September 13, 1903 March 24, 1970, was a Filipino writer and labor leader who was known for his criticism of social injustices in the Philippines and was later imprisoned for his involvement in the communist movement. He was the central figure in a landmark legal case that took 13 years to settle. He was born in Hagonoy, Bulacan but grew up Tondo, Manila, where he studied at the Manila High School and at the American Correspondence School.

Emmanuel Torres is a poet, art critic , professor of English and Comparative Literature at the Ateneo de Manila and curator of its art museum. He was born on April 29,1932. Torres obtained his BA Education at the Ateneo de Manila University, and in 1957, on a Fulbright-Smith-Mundt fellowship, he obtained his M.A. in English at the State University of Iowa where he enjoyed an International Scholarship in Creative Writing and attended Paul Engles Writers Workshop. He joined the Ateneo faculty in 1958, and since 1960 was curator of the Ateneo University Art Gallery. At the Ateneo, he held the Henry Lee Erwin Chair in Creative Writing and the FEBTC/Jose B. Fernandez Chair for art research. In addition to the extensive local and international recognition he received for his work in the arts and letters, Torres was art columnist in The Manila Times and SIM. He has also been a member of several committees on art exhibits across the globe.

He was born on 8 September 1915 in Romblon, Philippines. Gonzlez, however, was raised in Mansalay, a southern town of the Philippine province of Oriental Mindoro.

On 14 April 1987, the University of the Philippines conferred on N.V.M. Gonzlez the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, "For his creative genius in shaping the Philippine short story and novel, and making a new clearing within the English idiom and tradition on which he established an authentic vocabulary, ...For his insightful criticism by which he advanced the literary tradition of the Filipino and enriched the vocation for all writers of the present generation...For his visions and auguries by which he gave the Filipino sense and sensibility a profound and unmistakable script read and reread throughout the international community of letters... N.V.M. Gonzlez was proclaimed National Artist of the Philippines in 1997. He died on 28 November 1999 in Quezon City, Philippines at the age of 84. As a National Artist, Gonzalez was honored with a state funeral at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

Alejandro G. Abadilla (March 10, 1906August 26, 1969), commonly known as AGA, was a Filipino poet, essayist and fiction writer. Critic Pedro Ricarte referred to Abadilla as the father of modern Philippine poetry, and was known for challenging established forms and literature's "excessive romanticism and emphasis on rime and meter". Abadilla helped found the Kapisanang Panitikan in 1935 and edited a magazine called Panitikan. His Ako ang Daigdig collection of poems is one of his better known works.

Nicomedes Mrquez Joaqun was born in Paco, Manila, one of ten children of Leocadio Joaqun, a colonel under General Emilio Aguinaldo in the 1896 Revolution, and Salome Mrquez, a teacher of English and Spanish.

After being read poems and stories by his mother, the boy Joaqun read widely in his father's library and at the National Library of the Philippines. By then, his father had become a successful lawyer after the revolution. From reading, Joaqun became interested in writing. Was a Filipino writer, historian and journalist, best known for his short stories and novels in the English language. He also wrote using the pen name Quijano de Manila. Joaquin was conferred the rank and title of National Artist of the Philippines for Literature. He is considered one of the most important Filipino writers in English, and the third most important overall, after Jos Rizal and Claro M.

A Merge of Traditions
The taga-bukid and taga-bayan were the two cultures that made up the political entities. The educated and the wealthy and the ones who lacked the education and therefore did not qualify to exercise power. The taga bayan were more inclined to the culture of the Free World, while the taga-bukid was the nationalistic and anti American.

A transition from the Euro-Hispanic (socially conscious, deals with reality) period to the Anglo-American (thrived more on aesthetic qualities and was full of sentimentality and escapism) period of literature in the Philippines was brought about by Villa, the contradictions between the two styles resulted in the emphasis of a crisis for the Anglo American Tradition. It was later resolved in the 1970s. These two traditions had been implanted with indigenous traditions and through the efforts of the Filipino writers can be clearly called the Filipino literary tradition.

A Merge of Traditions

Existentialism and the Search for Identity

When President Ramon Magsaysay died of a plan crash in Cebu, this provoked an intellectual crisis. Claro M. Recto criticized President Ramon Magsaysay for being submissive to the US, with the death of Ramon Magsaysay; the country was under confusion and the people beginning to ask Recto for some answers that would shed some light regarding the countrys political philosophy. However Recto was not able to finish what he started because he dies in Rome of a heart attack. With Rectos death, the cultural scene in the Philippines became an extension of the US; many major publications in New York were brought to the Manila. Literary works included were poetry, fiction and drama, the latest literary fads in the west spread like wildfire. Some of the creative writers whose works were read by Filipinos were JeanPaul Sartre, Albert Camus, Norman Miller, Harold Pinter, Edward Albee, Jean Genet, and Samuel Beckett.