SURVEY OF PHILIPPINE LITERATURE IN ENGLISH

MODULE 4
Period of Self-Discovery and Growth
(1925 – 1941)
 INTRODUCTION

The year 1925 until 1941 was both blissful and terrible for the Filipinos. It was during
these years that the Filipinos enjoyed their American-sponsored freedom. However, the
political upheaval happening around the world and the world leaders’ greed for power led them
and their people into World War II beginning in 1942. The Filipinos, sadly, were dragged by
the Americans into this war since the Philippines was an American territory at that time. The
Japanese Imperial Army, bannering the philosophy “Asia for Asians” attacked all American-
controlled islands, including the Philippines.

In literature between these years, the Filipinos had been trained to speak English since
the time that it was introduced by the Thomasites in 1900. It had been 25 years since the
formal introduction of the language and the Filipinos had become great in speaking English.

This module is about the period of self-discovery and growth especially of the leading
Filipino writers of that time. Study the information given in this reading and remember all the
salient information that you need to know about another chapter in Philippine literature that
are written in English that changed the literary history in the Philippines.

Read:

Survey of Philippine Literature. Available at http://literature-is-fun.weebly.com/the-

american-regime.html

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of Module 4, at least 95% of the students shall be able to:

1. Discuss the genres of poetry, essay, short story, and novel of the
period of Self-Discovery
2. Teach ninth graders about this period
3. Reflect on their feelings about teaching literature
 An old picture of the Filipinos getting ready for an impending war. During this time, our
country and countrymen seemed restless. Because the Americans dragged our country to a
war that is actually never ours, many members of the families were displaced from each
other, especially when the war officially started in 1941.

KEY CONCEPT

PERIOD OF SELF-DISCOVERY AND GROWTH

(1925 – 1941)
Read:

Development of Philippine Literature in English. Available at:

http://notesfromthechoir.blogspot.com/2014/02/development-of-philippine-literature-
in.html
The flags that the old-time Filipinos have witnessed through the years of colonization

From left: Spanish Flag (1870s), the Philippine Independence Flag (1898), the US Flag with
only 45 stars (1900s), and the flag of Imperial Japan (1942-1945)
 The Philippine classroom from 1900 to 1941. In the picture are the young Filipino learners
together with the faculty, and at the back, are the American Thomasites who served as
principals or head master. The public school system at that time was being run by the
Thomasites as part of the Americanization of the Filipinos.

LEARNING RESOURCES

Read other materials connected to this study:

1. Philippines and Philippine Literature in English. Available at

https://www.slideshare.net/ezr001/philippines-and-philippine-literature-in-english
2. Philippine Literature Chapter 5: American Regime. Available at
https://literaturephilippines.weebly.com/chapter-5.html
 STUDY QUESTIONS

Answer the following questions:

1. List down the names of the characters and street names; then, connect them to their
characters in the story.
2. Identify the elements of the short story using the matrix below.
3. In the plot of the story, show the five elements. Use the matrix given below.
4. Critique the story of the author. To make your critique, study the link:

LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Read our representative literature for this module

For this module, we feature one of the pillars of Philippine literature – Jose Garcia Villa.
To find out more about him, open the link and take note of the poet/short story writer’s
biography.

Biography of Jose Garcia Villa. Available at:

https://poets.org/poet/jose-garcia-villa

Answer the following questions:

1. Who is Jose Garcia Villa?

2. When was Footnote to Youth published?
3. J. G. Villa is a modernist in literature writing. What is literary modernism? Discuss.

José García Villa (August 5, 1908 – February 7, 1997) was

a Filipino poet, literary critic, short story writer, and painter. He was
awarded the National Artist of the Philippines title for literature in
1973, as well as the Guggenheim Fellowship in creative writing
by Conrad Aiken. He is known to have introduced the "reversed
consonance rhyme scheme" in writing poetry, as well as the
extensive use of punctuation marks—especially commas, which
made him known as the Comma Poet. He used the pen
name Doveglion (derived from "Dove, Eagle, Lion"), based on the
characters he derived from his own works. These animals were
also explored by another poet, E. E. Cummings, in "Doveglion,
Adventures in Value", a poem dedicated to Villa.
 Four Poems by José Garcia Villa
“In my desire to be Nude / I clothed myself in fire: — / Burned down my
walls, my roof / Burned all these down.”

By Jose Garcia Villa

José Garcia Villa

POETRY | ANCHORED ANGEL, POETRY TUESDAY, REVERSED CONSONANCE
JUNE 9, 2015

José Garcia Villa was known as the “Pope of Greenwich Village” in 1940s New York
City. A proponent of experimentation and invention in poetry, the cerebral poet
introduced the “reversed consonance”—when the last sounded consonants of the
last syllable are reversed for the corresponding rhyme, such as with near and run,
and light and tell—and a new poetic use of the comma, when a comma is placed to
separate almost all the words in a poem. He was interested in the relationship
between the meaning of human life and the mystery of Creation, and strove to find
the I, to “reach that point where Man and God are in kinetic and heroic balance:
where the progression itself is the ordering and adhering into Identity.” The following
are four poems from Garcia Villa’s collection Anchored Angel: Selected
Writings published by Kaya Press.
151

The, caprice, of, canteloupes, is, to, be,

Sweet, or, not, sweet,—

To, create, suspense. A return,

To, Greek, drama.

Their, dramaturgy, is, not, in, the, sweet,

Soil, but, in, the, eye,

Of, birds, the, pure, eye, that, decides,

To, bestow, or,

To, withold. Shall, I, be, sweet, or,

Not, sweet?—looking,

Up, at, your, face. Till, sudden:

I, will, be, sweet!

136

The, hands, on, the, piano, are, armless.

No, one, is, at, the, piano.
The, hands, begin, and, end, there.

There, no-one’s, hands, are, there:

Crystal, and, clear, upon, the, keys.
Playing, what, they, play.

Playing, what, they, are.

Playing, the, sound, of, Identity.
Yet, how, absurd, how, absurd, how, absurd!
14

In my desire to be Nude
I clothed myself in fire:—
Burned down my walls, my roof,
Burned all these down.

Emerged myself supremely lean

Unsheathed like a holy knife.
With only His Hand to find
To hold me beyond annul.

And found Him found Him found Him

Found the Hand to hold me up!
He held me like a burning poem
And waved me all over the world.

77

Now I will tell you the Future

Of God. The futue of God is

Man. God aspired before and

Failed. Jesus was too much

God. Since God is moving

Towards Man, and Man is moving

Towards God—they must meet

Sometime. O but God is always

A Failure! That Time is the

End of the world. When God
And Man do meet—they will
Be so bitter they will not speak.

Questions for you to answer:

1. To what did the poet liken a cantaloupe? Why? To answer this question, look at the
characteristics of a cantaloupe, and discover what it is being compared to by the poet
in his poem.
2. Why is every word in the poem with a comma? What is Jose Garcia Villa known for
based on these commas?
3. What is a reversed consonant, according to Villa who invented it?
4. What is your assessment of Villa’s poem?
5. Explain:

In my desire to be Nude
I clothed myself in fire:—
Burned down my walls, my roof,
Burned all these down.

a. What does being “nude” mean?

b. What does the whole stanza stand for?

Next, let us turn our attention to one of the most famous Jose Garcia Villa short story,
“Footnote to Youth” written in 1933. But first, be introduced to the story by opening the link
below:

A Glimpse of Footnote to Youth. Available at

http://www.cordilleransun.com/2021/10/footnote-to-youth-by-jose-garcia-
villa.html#:~:text=Footnote%20to%20Youth%20is%20a,2021%20as%20I%20write%20this).

Footnote to Youth
Jose Garcia Villa, 1933

The sun was salmon and hazy in the west. Dodong thought to himself he would tell his father
about Teang when he got home, after he had unhitched the carabao from the plow, and let it
to its shed and fed it. He was hesitant about saying it, but he wanted his father to know.
What he had to say was of serious import as it would mark a climacteric in his life. Dodong
finally decided to tell it, at a thought came to him his father might refuse to consider it. His
father was silent hard-working farmer who chewed areca nut, which he had learned to do
from his mother, Dodong's grandmother.

I will tell it to him. I will tell it to him.

The ground was broken up into many fresh wounds and fragrant with a sweetish earthy
smell. Many slender soft worms emerged from the furrows and then burrowed again deeper
into the soil. A short colorless worm marched blindly to Dodong's foot and crawled calmly
over it. Dodong go tickled and jerked his foot, flinging the worm into the air. Dodong did
not bother to look where it fell, but thought of his age, seventeen, and he said to himself he
was not young any more.

Dodong unhitched the carabao leisurely and gave it a healthy tap on the hip. The beast
turned its head to look at him with dumb faithful eyes. Dodong gave it a slight push and the
animal walked alongside him to its shed. He placed bundles of grass before it land the
carabao began to eat. Dodong looked at it without interests.

Dodong started homeward, thinking how he would break his news to his father. He wanted
to marry, Dodong did. He was seventeen, he had pimples on his face, the down on his upper
lip already was dark--these meant he was no longer a boy. He was growing into a man--he
was a man. Dodong felt insolent and big at the thought of it although he was by nature low in
statue. Thinking himself a man grown, Dodong felt he could do anything.

He walked faster, prodded by the thought of his virility. A small angled stone bled his foot,
but he dismissed it cursorily. He lifted his leg and looked at the hurt toe and then went on
walking. In the cool sundown he thought wild youth dreams of himself and Teang. Teang, his
girl. She had a small brown face and small black eyes and straight glossy hair. How
desirable she was to him. She made him dream even during the day.

Dodong tensed with desire and looked at the muscles of his arms. Dirty. This field
work was healthy, invigorating but it begrimed you, smudged you terribly. He turned back the
way he had come, then he marched obliquely to a creek.

Dodong stripped himself and laid his clothes, a gray undershirt and red kundiman shorts, on
the grass. The he went into the water, wet his body over, and rubbed at it vigorously. He was
not long in bathing, then he marched homeward again. The bath made him feel cool.

It was dusk when he reached home. The petroleum lamp on the ceiling already was lighted
and the low unvarnished square table was set for supper. His parents and he sat down on
the floor around the table to eat. They had fried fresh-water fish, rice, bananas, and caked
sugar.

Dodong ate fish and rice, but did not partake of the fruit. The bananas were overripe and
when one held them they felt more fluid than solid. Dodong broke off a piece of
the cakes sugar, dipped it in his glass of water and ate it. He got another piece and wanted
some more, but he thought of leaving the remainder for his parents.

Dodong's mother removed the dishes when they were through and went out to the batalan to
wash them. She walked with slow careful steps and Dodong wanted to help her carry the
dishes out, but he was tired and now felt lazy. He wished as he looked at her that he had a
sister who could help his mother in the housework. He pitied her, doing all the housework
alone.

His father remained in the room, sucking a diseased tooth. It was paining him again, Dodong
knew. Dodong had told him often and again to let the town dentist pull it out, but he
was afraid, his father was. He did not tell that to Dodong, but Dodong guessed it. Afterward
Dodong himself thought that if he had a decayed tooth he would be afraid to go to the
dentist; he would not be any bolder than his father.
Dodong said while his mother was out that he was going to marry Teang. There it was out,
what he had to say, and over which he had done so much thinking. He had said it without
any effort at all and without self-consciousness. Dodong felt relieved and looked at his father
expectantly. A decrescent moon outside shed its feeble light into the window, graying the still
black temples of his father. His father looked old now.

"I am going to marry Teang," Dodong said.

His father looked at him silently and stopped sucking the broken tooth. The
silence became intense and cruel, and Dodong wished his father would suck that troublous
tooth again. Dodong was uncomfortable and then became angry because his father kept
looking at him without uttering anything.

"I will marry Teang," Dodong repeated. "I will marry Teang."

His father kept gazing at him in inflexible silence and Dodong fidgeted on his seat.

"I asked her last night to marry me and she said...yes. I want your permission. I... want...
it...." There was impatient clamor in his voice, an exacting protest at this coldness, this
indifference. Dodong looked at his father sourly. He cracked his knuckles one by one, and
the little sounds it made broke dully the night stillness.

"Must you marry, Dodong?"

Dodong resented his father's questions; his father himself had married. Dodong made a
quick impassioned easy in his mind about selfishness, but later he got confused.

"You are very young, Dodong."

"I'm... seventeen."

"That's very young to get married at."

"I... I want to marry...Teang's a good girl."

"Tell your mother," his father said.

"You tell her, tatay."

"Dodong, you tell your inay."

"You tell her."

"All right, Dodong."

"You will let me marry Teang?"

"Son, if that is your wish... of course..." There was a strange helpless light in his father's
eyes. Dodong did not read it, so absorbed was he in himself.

Dodong was immensely glad he had asserted himself. He lost his resentment for his father.
For a while he even felt sorry for him about the diseased tooth. Then he confined his mind to
dreaming of Teang and himself. Sweet young dream....
 __________

Dodong stood in the sweltering noon heat, sweating profusely, so that his camiseta was
damp. He was still as a tree and his thoughts were confused. His mother had told him not to
leave the house, but he had left. He had wanted to get out of it without clear reason at all. He
was afraid, he felt. Afraid of the house. It had seemed to cage him, to compares his thoughts
with severe tyranny. Afraid also of Teang. Teang was giving birth in the house; she gave
screams that chilled his blood. He did not want her to scream like that, he seemed to be
rebuking him. He began to wonder madly if the process of childbirth was really painful. Some
women, when they gave birth, did not cry.

In a few moments he would be a father. "Father, father," he whispered the word with awe,
with strangeness. He was young, he realized now, contradicting himself of nine months
comfortable... "Your son," people would soon be telling him. "Your son, Dodong."

Dodong felt tired standing. He sat down on a saw-horse with his feet close together. He
looked at his callused toes. Suppose he had ten children... What made him think that? What
was the matter with him? God!

He heard his mother's voice from the house:

"Come up, Dodong. It is over."

Suddenly he felt terribly embarrassed as he looked at her. Somehow he was ashamed to his
mother of his youthful paternity. It made him feel guilty, as if he had taken something no
properly his. He dropped his eyes and pretended to dust dirt off his kundiman shorts.

"Dodong," his mother called again. "Dodong."

He turned to look again and this time saw his father beside his mother.

"It is a boy," his father said. He beckoned Dodong to come up.

Dodong felt more embarrassed and did not move. What a moment for him. His parents' eyes
seemed to pierce him through and he felt limp.

He wanted to hide from them, to run away.

"Dodong, you come up. You come up," he mother said.

Dodong did not want to come up and stayed in the sun.

"Dodong. Dodong."

"I'll... come up."

Dodong traced tremulous steps on the dry parched yard. He ascended the bamboo steps
slowly. His heart pounded mercilessly in him. Within, he avoided his parents eyes. He
walked ahead of them so that they should not see his face. He felt guilty and untrue. He felt
like crying. His eyes smarted and his chest wanted to burst. He wanted to turn back, to go
back to the yard. He wanted somebody to punish him.

His father thrust his hand in his and gripped it gently.

"Son," his father said.

And his mother: "Dodong..."

How kind were their voices. They flowed into him, making him strong.

"Teang?" Dodong said.

"She's sleeping. But you go on..."

His father led him into the small sawali room. Dodong saw Teang, his girl-wife, asleep on the
papag with her black hair soft around her face. He did not want her to look that pale.

Dodong wanted to touch her, to push away that stray wisp of hair that touched her lips, but
again that feeling of embarrassment came over him and before his parents he did not want
to be demonstrative.

The hilot was wrapping the child, Dodong heard it cry. The thin voice pierced him queerly.
He could not control the swelling of happiness in him.

“You give him to me. You give him to me," Dodong said.

Blas was not Dodong's only child. Many more children came. For six successive years a
new child came along. Dodong did not want any more children, but they came. It seemed the
coming of children could not be helped. Dodong got angry with himself sometimes.

Teang did not complain, but the bearing of children told on her. She was shapeless and thin
now, even if she was young. There was interminable work to be done. Cooking. Laundering.
The house. The children. She cried sometimes, wishing she had not married. She did not tell
Dodong this, not wishing him to dislike her. Yet she wished she had not married. Not even
Dodong, whom she loved. There has been another suitor, Lucio, older than Dodong by nine
years, and that was why she had chosen Dodong. Young Dodong. Seventeen. Lucio had
married another after her marriage to Dodong, but he was childless until now. She wondered
if she had married Lucio, would she have borne him children. Maybe not, either. That was a
better lot. But she loved Dodong...

Dodong whom life had made ugly.

One night, as he lay beside his wife, he rose and went out of the house. He stood in the
moonlight, tired and querulous. He wanted to ask questions and somebody to answer him.
He wanted to be wise about many things.

One of them was why life did not fulfill all of Youth's dreams. Why it must be so. Why one
was forsaken... after Love.

Dodong would not find the answer. Maybe the question was not to be answered. It must be
so to make youth Youth. Youth must be dreamfully sweet. Dreamfully sweet. Dodong
returned to the house humiliated by himself. He had wanted to know a little wisdom but was
denied it.

_________

When Blas was eighteen he came home one night very flustered and happy. It was late at
night and Teang and the other children were asleep. Dodong heard Blas's steps, for he
could not sleep well of nights. He watched Blas undress in the dark and lie down softly. Blas
was restless on his mat and could not sleep. Dodong called him name and asked why he did
not sleep. Blas said he could not sleep.

"You better go to sleep. It is late," Dodong said.

Blas raised himself on his elbow and muttered something in a low fluttering voice.

Dodong did not answer and tried to sleep.

"Itay ...," Blas called softly.

Dodong stirred and asked him what it was.

"I am going to marry Tona. She accepted me tonight."

Dodong lay on the red pillow without moving.

"Itay, you think it over."

Dodong lay silent.

"I love Tona and... I want her."

Dodong rose from his mat and told Blas to follow him. They descended to the yard, where
everything was still and quiet. The moonlight was cold and white.

"You want to marry Tona," Dodong said. He did not want Blas to marry yet. Blas was very
young. The life that would follow marriage would be hard...

"Yes."

"Must you marry?"

Blas's voice stilled with resentment. "I will marry Tona."

Dodong kept silent, hurt.

"You have objections, Itay?" Blas asked acridly.

"Son... n-none..." (But truly, God, I don't want Blas to marry yet... not yet. I don't want Blas to
marry yet....)

But he was helpless. He could not do anything. Youth must triumph... now. Love must
triumph... now. Afterwards... it will be life.

As long ago Youth and Love did triumph for Dodong... and then Life.

Dodong looked wistfully at his young son in the moonlight. He felt extremely sad and sorry
for him.

Questions to answer:

1. Why is the story titled that way? What is a footnote and why is it addressed to the
youth?
 2. Compare the youth of 1930s to the youth today.
3. What is the socio-economic implication of marriage in the 1930s and marriage in our
day?
4. Answer this question addressed to YOU: Must you marry? If yes, when is the right
time to get married?
5. What are the underpinnings of Jose Garcia Villa’s short story in terms of the
following?

a. Socio-political
b. Religious
c. Literary?

For the poem, answer using this box

For the poem, answer using this box
For your OBA:

Translate the short story into a movie as an academic project for Bright Sentinels of
Education.

Guidelines:

1. The movie should be acted out by your class only.

2. While there are only few characters, others may work in the production.
3. Let a skilled classmate in terms of directing be singled out as your director
4. Make a poster for the movie.
5. Prepare a date for the premier of the movie.
6. Most important: Follow strictly the details of the story. The movie should be attributed
to the memory of Jose Garcia Villa.
7. Finally, set the movie to circa 1933 until 1951. Remember that the scene of the story
is in the farm.

REFERENCE USED

Survey of Philippine Literature. Available at http://literature-is-fun.weebly.com/the-

american-regime.html

Development of Philippine Literature in English. Available at:

http://notesfromthechoir.blogspot.com/2014/02/development-of-philippine-literature-
in.html

Biography of Jose Garcia Villa. Available at: https://poets.org/poet/jose-garcia-villa

A Glimpse of Footnote to Youth. Available at http://www.cordilleransun.com/2021/10/footnote-

to-youth-by-jose-garcia-
villa.html#:~:text=Footnote%20to%20Youth%20is%20a,2021%20as%20I%20write%
20this).

Footnote to Youth. Available at

https://ischoolsericsonalieto.wordpress.com/2010/08/24/footnote-to-youth-
jose-garcia-villa/