EDUCATING THE LITERARY TASTE

PAZ LATORENA
PAZ LATORENA (1908 - 1953)

¡ She was one of the accomplished female writers in English during the pre-war era.
She spent her first three years of college at the University of the Philippines but
transferred her senior year to the University of Santo Tomas (UST) where she
completed an education degree in 1930. She continued her graduate studies
thereafter, and was subsequently invited to teach at UST.
¡ She became a popular short story writer whose works steadily gained recognition
over the years. In 2000, UST published her only collection of short fiction, Desire and
Other Stories.
BALTAZAR GRACIÁN (1601-1658)

¡ Spanish philosopher and writer.

¡ Hombre de buen gusto
JOSEPH ADDISON (1672-1719)

¡ English essayist, poet, and dramatist, who, with Richard Steele, was
a leading contributor to and guiding spirit of the periodicals The
Tatler and The Spectator.
¡ Defined Literary Taste “the discernment and appreciation of that
which is fundamentally excellent in literature”; “a faculty which
discerns the beauties of literature with pleasure and its
imperfections with dislike”.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE (1772 –1834)

¡ Literary taste is a rational activity but with a distinctively

subjective bias.
JOHN RUSKIN (1819-1900)

¡ English critic of art, architecture, and society.

 ACCORDING TO RUSKIN
a formal action of the
intellect, a deliberate search
for perfections and
Literary Criticism imperfections by the
application of universally
accepted standards to a
literary composition
is the instant, almost
instinctive preferring of one
literature to another,
apparently for no other Literary Taste
reason except that the first is
more proper to human
nature
ACCORDING TO RUSKIN

¡ To have literary taste…is to have a feeling and an inclination for what is fine and
beautiful in literature, to savor and to appreciate it, and to dislike and reject what is
vulgar and tawdry in it.
ACCORDING TO THE AUTHOR

¡ There comes a time in the life of every man when he discovers for himself or is led
to discover the wide and varied world of literature…in which the interplay of human
passions, the greatness and the misery of man, his heroism and his wickedness, his
strength and his weakness, are portrayed with relentless analysis by those whose
minds have probed human life to its deepest and most hidden springs of action.
When he finds himself in that world, and eventually he will, man will stand in need of
good literary taste.
ACCORDING TO THE AUTHOR

¡ For unless he knows how to discriminate, how to separate truth from falsehood,
good from bad, the specious from the true, the meretricious from the sincere; unless
he knows how not to take the truth of the portrayal for the truth of the thing
portrayed, unless he is convinced that aptness of expression and brilliance of diction
do not turn falsehood into truth, his sense of literary values runs the risk of being
falsified.
ACCORDING TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS (1723-1792)

¡ Taste can be taught. It can be acquired by determined

intercourse with good models. And it is one of the more
important functions of educations; that is, to train the student,
the seeker of light, to distinguish between pleasures that are
becoming to a man and pleasures that are unbecoming to him,
to find delight in what ought to delight him, and to feel repulsion
for what ought to repel him, especially in the field of literature.
THREE VALUES

Intellectual
• something in a literary composition which makes the reader
think to some purpose so that his mental life is enriched and
enlarged as a result.

Emotional
• An appeal to the emotions is the distinguishing mark of any
literature. A literary work has failed if it does not express or
arouse emotion.

Ethical
• when language goes beyond the normal express of
abnormality, and so gives the reader unhealthy information
and stimulates the morbid imagination, then it is immoral.
ACCORDING TO THE AUTHOR

¡ Education must erect barriers against rampant vulgarity. And good taste
is not only a barrier but a means of devulgarization; a taste that is
attuned to the fine and beautiful, a taste out of sympathy with the false
and the ignoble, a taste that would be one of the instruments for richer
living.
THE INTELLECTUAL/ACADEMIC TRADITION OR THE
CANONICAL TEXTS
INFERNO BY DANTE ALIGHIERI & THE BHAGAVADGITA
ORAL TRADITION

¡ The first and still most widespread mode of human communication.

¡ It refers to a dynamic and highly diverse oral-aural medium for evolving, storing, and
transmitting knowledge, art, and ideas.
¡ An orally composed poem is remembered not as a fixed text, but as a set of patterns.
There are large-scale story patterns, smaller set-pieces, or type-scenes, and much
smaller metrical formulas that a poet can use to fill out a line. These different
patterns allow singers to compose gigantic epics, thousands of lines long, without
ever memorizing all the exact words of the.
EPIC

¡ It is a long narrative poem recounting heroic deeds, although the term has also been
loosely used to describe novels and motion pictures. In literary usage, the term
encompasses both oral and written compositions.
MEDIEVAL PERIOD

¡ After the fall of Rome in 410, various groups of people competed for
power and territory in the former northwestern provinces of the
Roman Empire.
¡ Cultural leadership moved north from the Mediterranean to France,
Germany, and the British Isles.
MEDIEVAL PERIOD

¡ Pagan imagery were replaced by Christian representations.

¡ Emphasis shifted from the here-and-now to the hereafter.
13TH AND 14TH CENTURY

¡ Italy consisted of small kingdoms and city-states. The political

and military strife during that period was caused by the
quarrelling among these territories.
DANTE ALIGHIERI

¡ A politician, writer, and philosopher, Durante degli Alighieri

(known as Dante) was born in Florence, Italy, in 1265 to a
wealthy family with a long history of involvement in Florentine
politics.
DANTE ALIGHIERI

¡ Two major factions, The Guelph and the Ghibellines, controlled

Florence in the 13th Century. Dante was a member of the
Guelph, which supported the pope; the Ghibellines supported
the emperor.
¡ By 1300, the Guelphs had control of Florence.
DANTE ALIGHIERI

¡ Internal struggles developed among the Guelphs, and the party

split into two factions, the Whites and the Blacks. Dante was a
member of the Whites.
¡ Pope Boniface VIII supported the Blacks, and he sent his troops
to expel the Whites, which resulted in the exile of Dante.
DANTE ALIGHIERI

¡ Initially, Dante plotted to restore the Whites back to power.

When that possibility faded, he devoted himself to writing,
reading, and contemplative study.
¡ From 1313 to 1321, Dante wrote the Divine Comedy.
LA VITA NUOVA (THE NEW LIFE), 1294

¡ This work described his deep, lasting, yet platonic, love

for Beatrice, a woman he first met when he was 9 years
old. This collection of verse is composed of 28 short
poems and 3 canzone (song) combined with his own
prose commentary.
¡ It contains Dante’s ideas on romantic love and how it
can enhance our experience of divine love.

Ary Scheffer, Dante & Beatrice, 1851

¡ Nine times, the heaven of the light had returned to where it was at my birth, almost to the very same point of its
orbit, when the glorious lady of my mind first appeared before my eyes—she whom many called Beatrice without
even knowing that was her name. She had already been in this life long enough for the heaven of the fixed stars to
have moved toward the east a twelfth of a degree since she was born, so that she was at the beginning of her
ninth year when she appeared to me, and I saw her when I was almost at the end of my ninth. She appeared,
dressed in a very stately color, a subdued and dignified crimson, girdled and adorned in a manner that was fitting
for her young age.
DIVINE COMEDY

¡ It fits into the postclassical epic tradition—it is long, heroic, allegorical,

and often nationalistic.
¡ It is also innovative in a variety of ways: Dante sets the narrator within
the text; the book uses Tuscan (Italian) vernacular language rather than
traditional Latin.
 STRUCTURE OF THE DIVINE COMEDY

¡ It is structured in thirds, reflecting the significance of the number three in Christian

theology.
¡ The journey comprises three books (”Hell,” ”Purgatory,” and “Heaven”), each with 33
cantos, or chapters, plus one introductory chapter, to make 100 cantos in total.
¡ It is written in a verse style called terza rima, an interlocking threeline rhyme scheme:
aba bcb cdc.
EXAMPLE:
1. Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
2. mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
3. ché la diritta via era smarrita.
4. Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura
5. esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte
6. che nel pensier rinova la paura!
7. Tant' è amara che poco è più morte;
8. ma per trattar del ben ch'i' vi trovai,
9. dirò de l'altre cose ch'i' v'ho scorte.
A 1. One night, when half my life behind me lay,
B 2. I wandered from the straight lost path afar.
A 3. Through the great dark was no releasing way;
B 4. Above that dark was no relieving star.
C 5. If yet that terrored night I think or say,
B 6. As death's cold hands its fears resuming are.
C 7. Gladly the dreads I felt, too dire to tell,
D 8. The hopeless, pathless, lightless hours forgot,
C 9. I turn my tale to that which next befell
CANTO 1

¡ MIDWAY upon the journey of our life

I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

¡ I cannot well repeat how there I entered,

So full was I of slumber at the moment
In which I had abandoned the true way
CANTO 1

¡ And lo! almost where the ascent began,

A panther light and swift exceedingly,
Which with a spotted skin was covered o’er!
¡ The hour of time, and the delicious season;
But not so much, that did not give me fear
A lion’s aspect which appeared to me.
¡ And a she-wolf, that with all hungerings
Seemed to be laden in her meagreness,
And many folk has caused to live forlorn!
CANTO 1
¡ While I was rushing downward to the lowland,
Before mine eyes did one present himself,
Who seemed from long-continued silence hoarse.
¡ When I beheld him in the desert vast,
“Have pity on me,” unto him I cried,
“Whiche’er thou art, or shade or real man!”
¡ He answered me: “Not man; man once I was,
And both my parents were of Lombardy,
And Mantuans by country both of them.
¡ Sub Julio was I born, though it was late, 18
And lived at Rome under the good Augustus,
During the time of false and lying gods.
¡ A poet was I, and I sang that just
Son of Anchises, who came forth from Troy,
After that Ilion the superb was burned
CANTO 1

¡ Therefore I think and judge it for thy best

Thou follow me, and I will be thy guide,
And lead thee hence through the eternal place
CANTO II

¡ But I, why thither come, or who concedes it?

I not Aenas am, I am not Paul,
Nor I, nor others, think me worthy of it.
¡ Therefore, if I resign myself to come,
I fear the coming may be ill-advised;
Thou’rt wise, and knowest better than I speak.”
CANTO II

¡ Among those was I who are in suspense,

And a fair, saintly Lady called to me
In such wise, I besought her to command me…
¡ A friend of mine, and not the friend of fortune,
Upon the desert slope is so impeded
Upon his way, that he has turned through terror,
CANTO II

¡ And may, I fear, already be so lost,

That I too late have risen to his succour,
From that which I have heard of him in Heaven.
¡ Bestir thee now, and with thy speech ornate,
And with what needful is for his release,
Assist him so, that I may be consoled.
Beatrice am I, who do bid thee go;
I come from there, where I would fain return;
Love moved me, which compelleth me to speak.
CANTO III

¡ Before me there were no created things,

Only eterne, and I eternal last.
“All hope abandon, ye who enter in!”
¡ These words in sombre colour I beheld
Written upon the summit of a gate;
Whence I: “Their sense is, Master, hard to me!”
VESTIBULE OF HELL

¡ The souls that are here belongs to

people who in life took no sides; the
opportunists who were for neither
good nor evil, but instead were merely
concerned with themselves.
CANTO III

¡ Charon the demon, with the eyes of glede,

Beckoning to them, collects them all together,
Beats with his oar whoever lags behind

And as a man whom sleep hath seized I fell.

CANTO IV

¡ To me the Master good: “Thou dost not ask

What spirits these, which thou beholdest, are?
Now will I have thee know, ere thou go farther,
¡ That they sinned not; and if they merit had,
’Tis not enough, because they had not baptism
Which is the portal of the Faith thou holdest;
CANTO IV

¡ And if they were before Christianity,

In the right manner they adored not God;
And among such as these am I myself
¡ For such defects, and not for other guilt,
Lost are we and are only so far punished,
That without hope we live on in desire.”
¡ Great grief seized on my heart when this I heard,
Because some people of much worthiness
I knew, who in that Limbo were suspended.
CANTO IV

¡ Hence he drew forth the shade of the First Parent,

And that of his son Abel, and of Noah,
Of Moses the lawgiver, and the obedient
¡ Abraham, patriarch, and David, king,
Israel with his father and his children,
And Rachel, for whose sake he did so much,
FIRST CIRCLE: LIMBO

¡ It is resided by virtuous non-

Christians and unbaptized
pagans who are punished with
eternity in an inferior form of
Heaven.
CANTO V

¡ There standeth Minos horribly, and snarls;

Examines the transgressions at the entrance;
Judges, and sends according as he girds him.
 SECOND CIRCLE: THE CARNAL

¡ The souls imprisoned here were overcome by

lust. They are punished by being blown
violently back and forth by strong winds,
preventing them from finding peace and rest.
Strong winds symbolize the restlessness of a
person who is led by the desire for fleshly
pleasures.
CANTO V

¡ Love, that on gentle heart doth swiftly seize,

Seized this man for the person beautiful
That was ta’en from me, and still the mode offends
me.
¡ Love, that exempts no one beloved from loving,
Seized me with pleasure of this man so strongly,
That, as thou seest, it doth not yet desert me;
¡ Love has conducted us unto one death;
Caina waiteth him who quenched our life!”
These words were borne along from them to us.
CANTO V

¡ Then unto them I turned me, and I spake,

And I began: “Thine agonies, Francesca,
Sad and compassionate to weeping make me.
 THIRD CIRCLE: THE GLUTTONOUS

¡ The souls here are overlooked by Cerberus. Sinners in this circle of

Hell are punished by being forced to lie in a vile slush that is
produced by never-ending icy rain. The vile slush symbolizes
personal degradation of one who overindulges in food, drink, and
other worldly pleasures, while the inability to see others lying
nearby represents the gluttons’ selfishness and coldness.
 FOURTH CIRCLE: THE GREEDY

¡ The souls here are divided into two groups – those

who hoarded possessions and those who lavishly
spent it – jousting. They use great weights as a
weapon, pushing it with their chests which
symbolizes their selfish drive for fortune during
their lifetime.
FIFTH CIRCLE: THE WRATHFUL

¡ This is where the wrathful and sullen are punished

for their sins. Transported on a boat by Phlegyas,
Dante and Virgil see the furious fighting each other
on the surface of the river Styx and the sullen
gurgling beneath the surface of the water.
SIXTH CIRCLE: THE HERETICAL

¡ The heretics are condemned

to eternity in flaming tombs.
SEVENTH CIRCLE:VIOLENCE

¡ The Seventh Circle of Hell is divided into three rings. The Outer Ring houses
murderers and others who were violent to other people and property. In the
SEVENTH CIRCLE:
Middle Ring, the poet sees suicides who have been turned into trees and bushes
THEwhich
VIOLENT
are fed upon by harpies. In the Inner Ring are blasphemers and sodomites,
residing in a desert of burning sand and burning rain falling from the sky.
EIGHT CIRCLE: THE FRAUDULENT
¡ The Eight Circle of Hell is resided by the fraudulent. This circle of Hell is
divided into 10 Bolgias or stony ditches with bridges between them.
¡ Bolgia 1, Dante sees panderers and seducer.
¡ Bolgia 2 he finds flatterers.
¡ Bolgia 3, he and Virgil see those who are guilty of simony.
¡ Bolgia 4, they find sorcerers and false prophets.
¡ Bolgia 5 are housed corrupt politicians
¡ Bolgia 6 are hypocrites and
¡ In the remaining 4 ditches, Dante finds hypocrites (Bolgia 7), thieves
(Bolgia 7), evil counselors and advisers (Bolgia 8), divisive individuals
(Bolgia 9) and various falsifiers such as alchemists, perjurers, and
counterfeits (Bolgia 10).
NINTH CIRCLE: THE TREACHEROUS

¡ The last Ninth Circle of Hell is divided into 4 Rounds according to the seriousness of the sin. Though all residents
are frozen in an icy lake. Those who committed more severe sin are deeper within the ice.
¡ Round 1 – Caïna: this round is named after Cain, who killed his own brother in the first act of murder.
¡ Round 2 – Antenora: the second round is named after Antenor, a Trojan soldier who betrayed his city to the
Greeks.
¡ Round 3 – Ptolomaea: the third region of Cocytus is named after Ptolemy, who invited his father-in-law Simon
Maccabaeus and his sons to a banquet and then killed them.
¡ Round 4 – Judecca: the fourth division of Cocytus, named for Judas Iscariot.
ALLEGORY

¡ the expression by means of symbolic fictional figures and actions of truths or

generalizations about human existence.