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GenEd PhilLit Handout
GenEd PhilLit Handout
(General Education)
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by The Laughter of My Father, a collection of humorous short stories and America Is in the
Heart, an autobiography.
Jose Garcia Villa’s collection of poems Have Come, Am Here revealed great power both in thought
and expression and elicited the warmest praises from American and English critics.
The Carlos Palanca Sr. Memorial Awards for Literature started the most prestigious annual literary
contest sponsored by a liquor manufacturer, a magnate, and patron of the arts.
The Philippine Free Press revived its annual award for the best short story. Philippine Writers
Union (later the Philippine Writers Association) and the Philippine International PEN (poets,
essayists, and novelists) provided support for young writers.
In 1960, the Republic Cultural Heritage Awards for literature was created “to initiate a movement
for greater and more dedicated efforts in cultural advancement, to complement the country’s
program of economic development.”
Some literary productions during the period
o America Is in the Heart - Carlos Bulosan
o Seven Hills Away - NVM Gonzales
o Divide By Two - Francisco Arcellana
o You Lovely People - Bienvenido Santos
o The Woman Who Had Two Navels - Nick Joaquin
o The Pretenders - Francisco Sionil Jose
o Hand of the Enemy - Kerima Polotan
LITERATURE
1. Literature – from Latin literratura writing, a derivative of litteratus versed in literature, culture; writings having
excellence of form or expression and presenting ideas of permanent or universal interest; the body of written
works produced in a particular language, country, or age.
2. Types of Literature
Prose – a literary medium distinguished from poetry especially by greater irregularity and variety of rhythm and
its closed resemblance to the patterns of everyday speech.
Poetry – writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and
arranged to create a specific response through its meaning, sound and rhythm.
Epic – a long narrative poem recounting the deeds of a hero with supernatural powers.
The lliad – written by Homer, consists of twenty-four books covering the last forty-nine days of the tenth
year of the Trojan war, probably in the 10th century B.C. Most of the books give detailed accounts of the
fierce battles waged on the plains of Troy.
The Odyssey – also by Homer, consist also of twenty-four books, is closely connected with The lliad
inasmuch as it represents the ten-year struggle of the Greek Ulysses (Odysseus) to reach and save his
own kingdom, lthaca, after the fall of Troy.
The Aeneid – the great epic of Rome was written by Virgil in the first century A.D. the story tells how
Aeneas is able to found the city of Rome.
Beowulf – is England’s oldest epic. It is about the heroic deeds of Beowulf who helps save the kingdom of
Heorot.
The Shah Namah – is the great epic of Persia. It was written by Firdausi meaning “Singer of Paradise.”
His real name is Abdul Kasim Mausur. The story tells of the struggle of Persia to overthrow her enemies.
The Nibelungenlied – a folk epic consisting of 39 parts called adventures. It tells the story of Siegfried and
how he helped King Gunther win his bride. It is also about the lack of union between rival, kindred tribes.
The Song of Roland – the great epic of France was probably written near the end of the 11th century. The
story depicted the great struggle of Christian knights of France under Charlemagne against the Moors or
the Mahammedans.
The Cid – is the great epic of Spain, written about 1200 A.D. The story tells of the deeds of the great “Cid”
or “lord”, Rodrigo in his wars with the Moors.
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The Divine Comedy – written by Dante, is the great epic of Italy and of Medieval Christianity. The epic has
three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The great purpose to be accomplished in the epic is the
salvation of soul.
Metrical Romance – a long rambling love story in verse. It is the type of literature most characteristic of
the Middle Ages. Chivalry, romantic love, religion predominate. Wonderful and impossible adventures are
set forth.
Sir Gawain and Green Knight – is a story of courage, loyalty and faith in God.
The Ballad – a short narrative poem which could be sung. It’s very short and told in great rapidity. It told a
simple, serious story which usually had a tragic ending; love, tragedy, and the supernatural predominated.
Lord Randal, Get Up and Bar the Door, Richard Cory, Lochinvar, La Belle Dame Sans Merci.
Metrical Tale – some say it’s like a short story in verse. It deals with any emotion or phase of life, and its
story is told in as simple, straightforward, and realistic a manner as possible.
The Canterbury Tales – written by Geoffrey Chaucer. It is a large collection of otherwise isolated stories. It
features the different people of Medieval England.
The Decameron – written by an Italian writer, Giovanni Boccaccio. It is a collection of tales told by a group
of young people escaping the Black Death from the city.
1. Lyric Poetry – derives its name from the musical instrument, the lyre, and was primarily intended to be
sung. It expresses the author’s own moods, emotions and reflections in musical language.
Ode – the most majestic type of lyric poetry. It expresses enthusiasm, lofty praise of some person or
thing, deep reflection or restrained feeling.
Ode to the West Wind – Percy Bysshe Shelley; Ode to Duty – William Wordsworth;Ode to a
Nightingale – John Keats
Elegy – a lyric poem that voices the author’s personal grief for a loved one or a meditation on death. It is a
poem of lamentation.
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard – Thomas Gray – shows a solemn reflection on the
unmarked graves of common people in the lonely churchyard.
She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways – William Wordsworth
Break, Break, Break – Alfred Lord Tennyson
Sonnet – composed of 14 iambic pentameter lines. The Italian writer Petrarch was the first to write
sonnets. In England Shakespeare, Spenser, Sidney, and others wrote them.
Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets – Sonnet 18, 29 are the most popular
Wordsworth wrote 400 sonnets – Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, 1802
How do I Love Thee – Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Simple Lyric – touches every mood and emotion of the human heart. All the other poems that do not
properly belong under any of the types of lyrics are called simple lyric poems.
The Tiger – William Blake
Snow Dust, The road not Taken, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening- Robert Frost.
Gitanjali – Rabindranath Tagore
2. Dramatic Poetry – the poetic form is used to set forth life and character by means of speech and action.
Poetic Plays – dramas written in verse form.
The Drama of Greece and Rome – Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, Medea by Euripides; The
Dramas of Shakespeare
3. Dramatic Monologue – has but one speaker and is not adapted for regular stage presentation. It is,
however, sometimes used for declamatory purposes.
The great master of this form was Robert Browning. He chooses a particular crisis in the life of the
speaker makes him lay bare the depths of his soul and unconsciously reveals all the hidden springs
and motives for action. His most famous is “My Last Duchess”.
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4. Prose Drama – a composition intended to portray life or character or tell a story usually involving
conflicts and emotions through action and dialogue and typically designed for theatrical performance.
A Doll’s House – Henrik Ibsen – the husband in the story treats Nora, the wife a doll, a
plaything, a pet, instead of a woman, as a person.; Death of a Salesman – Arthur Miller
The Physician Inspite of Himself – Moliere;Cyrano de Bergerac – Edmond Rostand
5. The Essay – an analytic, interpretative, or critical literary composition usually much shorter and less
systematic and formal than a dissertation or thesis and usually dealing with its subject from a limited
and often personal point of view.
1. Familiar essay – an informal, light-hearted from of the essay
2. Formal essay – a serious form of the essay
3. Michel de Montaigne – first applied to his prose pieces the term essays in 1571
4. Francis Bacon – applied the term essays to his own short prose pieces in English
5. Of Studies – Bacon, a Dissertation Upon a Roast Pig – Charles Lamb, The Profit of One Man is
Damage to Another – Michel De Montaigne.
6. Prose Fiction – is something like the drama, but it contains descriptive material which could not be used
for stage presentation. It is literature created from the imagination, not presented as fact, thought it
may be based on a true story or situation.
7. Short story – a brief fictional prose narrative to be distinguished from longer, more expansive forms
such as the novel, or epic. It is usually concerned with a single effect conveyed in a significant episode
or scene involving a limited number of characters, sometimes only one.
The Cask of Amontillado, The Masque of the Red Death, Tell-Tale Heart, The Fall of the House
of Usher – Edgar Allan Poe; The Necklace, The Jewels, The Piece of String – Guy de
Maupassant
A Father, The Slanderer, The Lottery Ticket, Anton Chekhov; The Last Leaf, The Gift of The
Magi – O’Henry
8. The Novel – from the Italian word novella. A fictional prose narrative of considerable length and a
certain complexity that deals imaginatively with human experience through a connected sequence of
events involving a group of people in specific setting.
A. Picaresque novel – an early form of the novel, usually a first-person narrative, relating the adventures of
a rogue or lowborn adventurer (Spanish: picaro) who drifts from place to place and from one social milieu
to another in an effort to survive.
Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
B. Epistolary novel – a novel told through the medium of letters by one or more of the characters. This
was one of the earliest forms of the novel to be developed.
C. Gothic novel – European Romantic, pseudo medieval fiction having a prevailing atmosphere of mystery
and terror.
Frankenstein – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley; Dracula – Bram Stoker; Jane Eyre – Charlotte
Bronte
D. Roman- a -Clef – French, literally it means novel with a key. A novel that has extra literary interest of
portraying identifiable, sometimes real people more or less thinly disguised as fictional characters.
E. Historical novel – a novel that has its setting a period of history and that attempts to convey the spirit,
manners and social conditions of a past age with realistic detail and fidelity to historical fact.
War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
F. Novel of manners – work of fiction that re-creates a social world, conveying with finely detailed
observation the customs, values, and mores of a highly developed and complex society.
Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen; The Age of Innocence – Edith
Wharton
Figures of Speech – a form of expression used to convey meaning or heighten affect by comparing or
identifying one thing with another that has a meaning or connotation familiar to the reader or listener.
1. Simile – a comparison between two unlike entities. The resemblance is explicitly indicated by the words
“like” or “as”.
He eats like a bird, I wandered lonely as a cloud.
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2. Metaphor – a word or phrase denotes one kind of object or action used in place of another to suggest a
likeness or analogy between them.
You are the apple of my eyes.
What is a sonnet? ‘Tis the early shell that murmurs of the far-off murmuring sea; a precious jewel
carved most curiously; it is a little picture painted well.
3. Personification – human characteristics are attributed to an abstract quality, animal, or inanimate object.
Death lays his icy hand on kings. The windy waves were dancing.
Rhetorical devices
Literary Terms
1. Comedy – the genre of dramatic literature that deals with the light or amusing or with the serious and
profound in a light, familiar, or satirical manner.
2. Farce – a light dramatic composition that uses highly improbable situations, stereotyped characters,
extravagant exaggeration, and violent horseplay.
3. Allegory – a more or less symbolic fictional narrative that conveys a secondary meaning (or meanings) not
explicitly set forth in the literal narrative.
The Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan; Everyman – anonymous
4. Bildungsroman – a class of novel in German literature that deals with the formative years of the main
character. It ends on a positive note, though it may be tempered by resignation and nostalgia.
Parzival – Wolfram von Eschenbach; The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce
5. Magic Realism – Latin-American literary phenomenon characterized by the incorporation of fantastic or
mythical elements matter-of-factly into otherwise realistic fiction.
One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The House of the Spirits – Isabel Allende; Like Water for Chocolate – Laura Esquivel
6. Stream -of -consciousness technique – a narrative technique in non dramatic fiction intended to render the
flow of myriad impressions – visual, auditory, physical, associative, and subliminal.
The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner; The Waves – Virginia Woolf
7. Satire – a usually topical literary composition holding up human or individual vices, folly, abuses or
shortcomings to censure by means of ridicule, irony, or other methods, sometimes with intent to bring about
improvement.
Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift
8. Allusion – an implied on indirect reference to a person, event, thing, or a part of another text.
I’m not Lazarus, nor Prince Hamlet; Between the devil and the deep blue sea; Literature is my
Achilles’ heel
9. Foreshadowing – the organization and presentation of events and scenes in a work of fiction or drama so
that the reader or observer is prepared to some degree for what occurs later in the work.
10 Flashback – a literary or theatrical technique used also in motion pictures and television that involves
interruption of the chronological sequence of events by interjection of events or scenes of earlier occurrence.
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PHILIPPINE LITERATURE
NOVELS
A child of sorrow (1921) is the first novel in English written by Zoilo M. Galang. It is an extremely
sentimental romance in which the lover, consumed by gnawing sadness, soon followed his beloved to
the grave.
The Filipino Rebel (1929) by Maximo Kalaw is about an ailing revolutionary Juanito who reneges on his
promise to marry the barrio lass Josefa by marrying instead a rich man’s daughter Leonor for his
political ambition.
His Native Soil (1940) is the story of Martin Romero, a Filipino educated abroad, who finds difficulty in
readjusting to his native surrounding and marries Virginia Fe. This Barangay (1950) is a chronicle of
wartime life in the countryside After his sister is raped, he bands with the group of fighting men to
survive the War, then joins the American Liberation forces. (JuanLaya)
Without Seeing the Dawn (1947) by Stevan Javellana is the first novel written by a Filipino after World
War II. It is divided into two books, namely “Day” and “Night”, both subdivision terms are symbolical.
The United (1951) is written by Carlos P. Romulo who had won the Pulitzer Prize in journalism. The
novel tells the story of Major Mackenna, a WWII veteran, who rejects reconciliation with his millionaire
father and refused to marry his fiancée, Julia, a daughter of the New York Chronicle publisher.
The Woman Who Had Two Navels (1960) Nick Joaquin’s first novel expansion of a successful story
with the same title. This novel portrays a woman named Connie Escobar as having two cultural
antecedents.
The Hand of the Enemy (1961) receives the Stonehill Award and the Republic Cultural Heritage Award
in 1963. It is the story of Emma Mercene who, through the vagaries of fortune, becomes dispossessed
of her inheritance and finds difficulty in settling down and in realizing happiness with her loving but
ambitious husband Domingo Gorrez.
Like a Big Brave Man is a delightful, humorous novel first published in a popular American weekly
magazine. His two other novels are Return to Gomma (1963) and Blood of Corruption which appeared
in Weekly Graphic.
POEMS
“Sursum Corda” by Justo Juliano is the first known Filipino poem and appeared in the Philippine Free
Press in 1907.
Reminiscences (1921) by Lorenzo Paredes was the first collection of poems in book form.
Never Mind (1922) was a collection of Procopio Solidum’s poems.
Filipino Poetry (1924) edited by Rodolfo Dato is an anthology of Filipino poems.
Azucena (1925) was published in New York and was written by Marcelo de Gracia Concepcion, a
leading poet of the early period.
Signatures (1955) the first Philippine poetry magazine in English.
DRAMA
Daughters for Sale and Other Plays (1924) is a collection of plays written by Carlos P. Romulo
The Toymaker and Other Plays (1951) is an anthology of Jorge Bacobo.
“The Husband of Mrs. Cruz” and “A Daughter of Destiny” are Vidal A. Tan’s best-remembered plays.
“The Oil Lamp”, “The Earthquake” and “Mother Christ” are Augusto Catanjal’s popular plays.
“Panday Pira”, a historical play, and “The Olive Garden”, A biblical play, are Jose M. Hernandez’s
works.
“Sa Pula, Sa Puti” is a farce written by Francisco Rodrigo.
The Voice of Freedom (1928) is Sol H. Gwekoh’s collection of patriotic plays.
“Glass Altars” and “Straw Patriot” are significant plays of Virginia Moreno
“Sepang Loca” is Amelia Lapena Boifacio’s best remembered play.
13 Plays (1947), 80 Other Plays (1962), and “7 More Plays” attest to the vast talent of Wilfrido Ma.
Guerrero. His “Half an Hour in a Convent” depicts the sufferings of an adolescent girl and a youth at the
hands of unsympathetic adults.
3 One-Act Plays (19953), and The Love of Leonor Rivera (1954) preserve Severino Montano’s postwar
dramatic achievements. “Sabina” is the tragic story of a barrio girl who gives herself to an American
businessman. She commits suicide upon finding the man is already married. “The Ladies and the
Senator” is a satirical comedy about gossip-mongering Filipino women in the US and the junket-loving
senator.
A Portrait of an Artist as Filipino” is Nick Joaquin’s elegy in three scenes about two middle-aged sisters
Paula and Candida whose domineering father is a painter.
The World Is an Apple and Other Prize Plays (1960) and Outstanding Filipino Short Plays (1962)
contain the towering achievements of Alberto Florentino’s dramatic genius.
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ESSAYS
Life and Success (1921) by Zoilo M. Galang became the first volume of essays in English. Master of
Destiny (1924) is Galang’s second anthology.
Thinking for Ourselves (1924) edited by Vicente M. Hilario and Eliseo Quirino.
Literature and Society (1940) by Salvador P. Lopez led the school of writers who stressed social
consciousness.
Horizon from My Nipa Hut (1941) by Mang Kiko or Francisco B. Icasiano included humorous essays
which revealed a deep sympathy for the common tao.
Birth of Discontent reflected the discipline and polish in I.V. Mallari’s writings.
Read the excerpt in the box to answer the items below. Choose the letter of the best answer.
Proem
Jose Garcia Villa
1. What poetic element does Villa highlight in the first two lines?
A. image C. rhythm
B. sound D. symbol
2. What figure of speech is used in lines 2 and 5?
A. simile C. metaphor
B. allusion D. personification
3. What sound device is exemplified in line 10?
A. assonance C. onomatopoeia
B. alliteration D. dissonance
4. What do the last two lines imply about poetry?
A. Poetry must be religious. C. Poetry should be original.
B. It should be humorous D. It serves a moral purpose.
5. What school of thought resounds in the following definition of poetry by Jose Garcia Villa?
A. religious art C. art for art’s sake
B. imagist art D. art for a purpose
The base of the flagpole, too, had been cemented and the old gate given a whitewash. The
bare grounds were, within the remarkable space of two hours, transformed into a riotous
bougainvillea garden. Potted blooms were still coming in through the gate by wheelbarrow and
bicycle. Buried deep in the secret earth, what supervisor could tell that such gorgeous
specimens were potted, or that they had merely been borrowed from the neighboring houses for
the visitation? Every school in the province had its special point of pride - a bed of giant
squashes, an enclosure or white king pigeons, a washroom constructed by the PTA. Yearly,
Pugad Lawin High School had made capital of its topography: rooted on the firm ledge of a hill,
the schoolhouse was accessible by a series of stone steps carved on the hard face of the rocks;
its west windows looked out on the misty grandeur of a mountain chain shaped like a sleeping
woman. Marvelous, but the supervisors were expecting something tangible, and so this year
there was the bougainvillea.
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6. What is the tone of the narrator in the excerpt from the short story Visitation of the Gods?
A. happy C. skeptical
B. angry D. sarcastic
7. What does the paragraph reveal about Pugad Lawin’s preparation for the visitation?
A. The school officials prepared much for the visitation.
B. They are still busy with the last minute preparations.
C. They did everything to make the school presentatble.
D. They tried to hide the true state of the school facilitie.
8. What was buried deep withing the soil in line 4?
A. secret B. pots C. bougainvilla D. blooms
9. What figure of speech did Cordero-Fernando employ in the title – The Visitation of the Gods?
A. allusion C. synecdoche
B. apostrophe D. metonymy
10. What rhetorical modes were used in the paragraph?
A. cause-effect C. description-narration
B. problem-solution D. comparison-contrast
11. Who is Quijano de Manila in most of his journalistic writings?
A. Jose Garcia Villa C. N.V.M. Gonzalez
B. Francisco Icasiano D.Nick Joaquin
12. Who is described in the following lines by Alejandro Roses?
“He has proven the truism that to understand the present; you have to first
know the past. And by presenting the present as a continuation of the future,
he has traced the roots of our rotting society to our moral confusion. He is
doing for the Philippines what Faulkner has done for the [U.S.] South."
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19. What do the following sentences reveal about infatuation?
So all these years –since when? He had been seeing the light of dead
stars long extinguished, yet seemingly still in heir appointed places in
the heavens.
21. Which of the following symbols dramatizes the fertility of the land as against the feeling of barrenness and
loneliness in the Wedding Dance?
A. dance B. hills C. fire D. seed
A. exposition C. climax
B. resolution D. rising action
29. When was the Carlos Palanca Awards for Literature created?
A. 1940 B. 1950 C. 1960 D. 1975