LIT REVIEWER 3.

Rhythm: beat and pace of a poem and is created

by the pattern of stressed and unstressed
POETRY syllables.
“The best words in their best order.” - Samuel Taylor : It helps in strengthening the meaning and ideas
Coleridge of the poem.
4. Meter: recurrence of regular units of stressed
“Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty. “- Edgar and unstressed syllables.
Allan Poe ➢ Stress occurs when one syllable is
“The spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes emphasized more than the other.
its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” ➢ Basic meter in poetry
- William Wordsworth ▪ Iambic: (unstressed/stressed)
▪ Trochaic: (stressed/unstressed)
According to Filipino author Ophelia Dimalanta (2003) ▪ Spondaic: (stressed/stressed)
▪ Anapestic:(unstressed/unstress-
- Poetry may be distinguished from prose in terms
ed/stressed)
of forms by its compression, by its frequent
▪ Dactylic:(stressed/unstressed/u
employment of the conventions of meter and
nstressed)
rhyme, by its resilience upon the line as a formal
unit, by its heightened vocabulary and by its B. Sound Elements
freedom of syntax.
- A poem is produced by a poet, takes its subject ➢ Sound Devices
matter from the universe of men, things and ➢ Rhyme/ Rhyme scheme
events, and is addressed to or made available to
an audience of hearers or readers. 1. Sound devices: special tools the poet can use to
- A made thing, a verbal construct, an event in create certain effects in the poem to convey and
language. The word “poiesis” means “making” reinforce meaning through sound.
and the oldest of the poets is the “maker” ➢ Alliteration
➢ Assonance
TYPES OF POETRY ➢ Rhyme
➢ Onomatopoeia
1. Lyric Poetry
2. Rhyme: is the use of matching sounds in two or
➢ Ode more words.
➢ Elegy ➢ Perfect rhyme: final vowel and consonant
➢ Sonnet sounds are the same.
➢ Simple lyric ➢ Imperfect rhyme: final consonant sounds in
two words are the same but the preceding
2. Narrative Poetry
vowels are different such as (learn and barn),
➢ Ballad (pads and lids).
➢ Epic ➢ Eye rhymes: appear to be perfect, but are
➢ Metrical romance either half rhyme (move and love) or no
➢ Metrical tale rhyme (bough and trough).
➢ Idyll ➢ Rhyme depends on the position in a verse.
▪ END RHYME
ELEMENTS OF POETRY
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
A. Formal Elements In the forests of the night
➢ Line ▪ INTERNAL RHYME
➢ Stanza The Sun came up upon the left,
➢ Rhythm/Prosody Out of the sea came he!
➢ Meter And he shone bright and on the right
Went down into the sea
1. Line: basic unit of a poem which forms a ▪ BEGINNING RHYME
stanza/verse. Red river, red river,
2. Stanza or verse: a series of lines grouped Slow flow heat is silence
together and separated by an empty line from No will is still as a river.
another stanza. It is a piece of writing arranged
C. Other elements
with a metrical rhythm.
➢ Refrain: is a verse that is repeated at ➢ Figures of Speech
intervals throughout a song or poem. ➢ Imagery
➢ Couplet: a two-line stanza ➢ Persona
➢ Tercet: a three-line stanza ➢ Tone/Mood
➢ Quatrain: a four-line stanza ➢ Diction
➢ Cinquain: a five-line stanza ➢ Theme

1. Persona: the speaker of the poem. *not

speaker/character
 2. Tone: speaker’s attitude toward his or her
reader or audience
3. Mood: is the atmosphere of the poem.
4. Diction: word choice that determines the level of
language, as well as word order.
➢ Denotation: the literal meaning
➢ Connotation: is what the meaning is
according to a particular cultural,
emotional, psychological, sociological
context.
➢ Abstract language: intangible qualities,
ideas, and concepts we know through
our intellect.
➢ Concrete language: uses tangible
qualities or characteristics we know
through our senses
▪ Poetry deals with particular
things in concrete language,
since our emotions most
readily respond to these
things.
5. Theme: the implicit idea expressed in the poem.
6. Subject: the explicit image used in the poem
➢ From the poem's particular situation,
the reader may then generalize; the
generalities arise by implication from
the particular
7. Figures of speech: are expressions that use
words to achieve effects beyond the ordinary
language
➢ The imagery of the poem relies on the words and
phrases that describe the concrete experiences
of the five senses
➢ “The use of language to represent objects,
actions, feelings, thoughts, ideas, states of mind
and any sensory or extra-sensory experience” -
J.A. Cuddon (413)
➢ “Expression of the imagination to deviation from
ordinary usage for the sake of ornament” A.F.
Scott (108)
“The Haiyan Dead” by Merlie M. Alunan
About the author
➢ She is one of the more influential and respected
writers in the Visayas region. She authored
numerous poetry collections like Hearthstone,
Sacred Tree, Amina Among the Angels,
Spiderwoman, Running with Ghosts and
Pagdakop sa Bulalakaw.
Form/structure of the poem
➢ Structure: free verse; no rhyme scheme
➢ Shape: flow of water (waves) - continuous
▪ contributes to the overall meaning of the
text
▪ has no punctuation marks because the poem
is continuous and spontaneous (a sign of
chaos)
▪ before, during, and after (technicalities)
FICTION
- a literary genre in prose form, particularly short
stories, novellas and novels describing events
and characters created in the author’s
imagination
ELEMENTS OF FICTION
1. Characters - In fiction, character refer to the
imagined person who inhabits a story
➢ Characterization: The way individual
characters are represented by the
narrator or author of a text through
descriptions of the characters’ physical
appearances, characteristic traits or
actions, interactions, and dialogue.
➢ Classifying Characters:
▪ Major characters: central to a story
▪ Minor characters: support the major
characters throughout the story's
action, but they are not as highly
developed.
▪ Protagonist: a story's central character
who faces a major conflict that must be
solved before the story's end
▪ Antagonist: opposes the protagonist
and serves as an obstacle that the
protagonist must overcome to resolve
the conflict.
➢ Terms for Interpreting Characters:
▪ Epithet: “An adjective, noun, or phase
expressing some characteristic quality of
a thing or person or a descriptive name
applied to a person
▪ : usually indicates some notable quality
about the individual with whom it
addresses, but it can also be used
ironically to emphasize qualities that
individual might actually lack.
▪ Personification: The use of a person to
represent a concept, quality, or object.
▪ Anti-hero: A protagonist of a story who
embodies none of the qualities typically
assigned to traditional heroes and
heroines. Not to be confused with the
antagonist of a story, the anti-hero is a
protagonist whose failings are typically
used to humanize him or her and convey
a message about the reality of human
existence.
▪ Archetype: a resonant figure or mythic
importance, whether a personality,
place, or situation, found in diverse
cultures and different historical periods'
Archetypes tend to reference broader or
commonplace (often termed “stock”)
character types, plot points, and literary
conventions.
2. Plot - The sequence of events that occur
throughout a work to produce a coherent
narrative or story.
➢ Parts of the Plot:
▪ Exposition: the opening
▪ Rising action: contains events arranged
in order of importance
▪ Climax: the rising order of importance in
the events depicted
▪ Falling action: events caused by the
climax contributing to the resolution
 ▪ Conflict: the source of complication
among the characters
o External conflict: takes place
between individuals or
between individuals and the
world around them.
o Internal conflict: takes place
within the mind of the
character/s.
▪ Denouement or Resolution - final
unraveling of the plot
➢ Terms for Interpreting Plot:
▪ Deus ex machina: “Literally, in Latin, the
‘god from the machine’; a deity in Greek and
Roman drama who was brought in by stage
machinery to intervene in the action; hence,
any character, event, or device suddenly
introduced to resolve the conflict
▪ In media res: Beginning in “the middle of
things,” or when an author begins a text in
the midst of action. This often functions as a
way to both incorporate the reader directly
into the narrative and secure his or her
interest in the narrative that follows.
▪ Frame narrative: a story that an author
encloses around the central narrative in
order to provide background information
and context. This is typically referred to as a
“story within a story” or a “tale within a
tale.” Frame stories are usually located in a
distinct place and time from the narratives
they surround.
3. Point of View - The perspective (visual,
interpretive, bias, etc.) a text takes when
presenting its plot and narrative.
➢ Types of Narrative according to Point of View
▪ First person: A story told from the
perspective of one or several characters,
each of whom typically uses the word “I.”
This means that readers “see” or experience
events in the story through the narrator’s
eyes.
▪ Second person: A narrative perspective that
typically addresses that audience using
“you.” This mode can help authors address
readers and invest them in the story.
▪ Third person: A narrative told from the
perspective of an outside figure who does
not participate directly in the events of a
story. This mode uses “he,” “she,” and “it” to
describe events and characters.
o Objective third person in which the
narrator knows or reveals nothing about
the characters' internal thoughts,
feelings, and motivations, but sticks to
the external facts of the story;
o Limited third person in which the
narrator describes the internal thoughts,
feelings, and motivations of one
character, usually the main character;
o Omniscient third person in which the
narrator knows and at least partially
reveals the internal thoughts, feelings,
and motivations of all the characters.
4. Setting - The physical location (real or invented)
and the social environment of the story
(including chronology, culture, institutions, etc.).
Time, place and atmosphere create the mood for
a fictional story and situates it in a context.
➢ Physical environment: the physical and
natural features of the landscape
➢ Sociological environment: cultural,
economic, and political attributes of a
place
➢ Psychological environment: the
“personality” of a place used as the
setting
5. Theme: a salient abstract idea that emerges
from a literary work’s treatment of its subject-
matter; or a topic recurring in a number or
literary works
: Themes in literature tend to differ depending
on author, time period, genre, style, purpose,
etc. It is the universal truth about life expressed
in a story.
6. Style - The way an author uses language to
convey his or her ideas and purpose in writing.
This includes an author’s diction, syntax, tone,
characters, and other narrative techniques.
➢ Terms for Interpreting Authorial Voice
▪ Apology: Often at the beginning or
conclusion of a text, the term “apology”
refers to an instance in which the author or
narrator justifies his or her goals in
producing the text.
▪ Irony: Typically refers to saying one thing
and meaning the opposite, often to shock
audiences and emphasize the importance of
the truth.
▪ Satire: A style of writing that mocks,
ridicules, or pokes fun at a person, belief, or
group of people in order to challenge them.
Often, texts employing satire use sarcasm,
irony, or exaggeration to assert their
perspective.
▪ Stream-of-consciousness: A mode of writing
in which the author traces his or her
thoughts verbatim in the text. Typically, this
style offers a representation of the author’s
exact thoughts throughout the writing
process and can be used to convey a variety
of different emotions or as a form of
prewriting.
7. Literary/Narrative Devices - devices and
strategies used by the writer to make the story
more vivid
➢ Allusion
➢ Dialogue
➢ Flashback
➢ Foil (for contrast, comic relief)
➢ Foreshadowing
➢ Irony
➢ Motif and Symbol
IMPORTANT TERMS
➢ Dialogue: the spoken exchanges
between characters in a dramatic or literary
work, usually between two or more speakers.
➢ Symbol(ism): an object or element
incorporated into a narrative to represent
another concept or concern. Symbols typically
recur throughout a narrative and offer critical,
 though often overlooked, information about
events, characters, and the author’s primary
concerns in telling the story.
➢ Tone: the way of communicating
information (in writing, images, or sound) that
conveys an attitude. Authors convey tone
through a combination of word-choice, imagery,
perspective, style, and subject matter. By
adopting a specific tone, authors can help
readers accurately interpret meaning in a text.
➢ Imagery: an author’s use of vivid
descriptions that evoke sense-impressions by
literal or figurative reference to perceptible or
‘concrete’ objects, scenes, actions, or states
: can refer to the literal landscape or characters
described in a narrative or the theoretical
concepts an author employs.
➢ Genre: a kind of literary text. Texts
frequently draw elements from multiple genres
to create dynamic narratives.
➢ Allegory: attempts to convert abstract
concepts, values, beliefs, or historical events into
characters or other tangible elements in a
narrative.
➢ Allusion: a literary text that references,
incorporates, or responds to an earlier piece
including literature, art, music, film, event, etc.
: an economical means of calling upon the history
or the literary tradition that author and reader
are assumed to share (Baldick)
➢ Parody: a narrative work or writing style
that mocks or mimics another genre or work.
Typically, parodies exaggerate and emphasize
elements from the original work in order to
ridicule, comment on, or criticize their message.
The Sadness Collector by Merlinda Bobis
About the author
➢ Award-winning writer Merlinda Bobis
is a contemporary Filipina-Australian writer and
academic. She grew up in Albay, Philippines.
➢ Master of Arts in Literature
(Meritissimus) from the University of Santo
Tomas, Manila.
➢ For ten years she taught Literature and
English at Philippine universities before coming
to Australia in 1991 on a study grant.
DRAMA
- a literary genre that is meant to be performed on
stage.
- “Dran” (Greek): to do/ to act a play
- “The art of the dramatist is like the art of the
architect. A plot has to be built up just as a house
is built- story after story; no edifice has any
chance of standing unless it has a broad
foundation and a solid frame.” – Brander
Matthews
- “The office of drama is to exercise, possibly to
exhaust human emotions. The purpose of
comedy is to tickle those emotions into an
expression of light relief; of tragedy, to wound
them and bring the relief of tears. Disgust and
terror are the other points of the compass.” –
Laurence Oliver
- “Drama lives on conflict. If you’re trying to deal
with social issues seriously, there’s no way of
avoiding violence, which is so present in society.”
– Michael Haneke
TYPES OF DRAMA
1. Tragedy: where the characters meet a tragic end
in a confrontation with superior forces (fortune,
the gods, social factors, community norms)
ultimately reaching an understanding of the
meaning of the situation and the punishment for
their actions.
2. Melodrama: relies on impossible events and
sensational action bordering on sentimentality.
It entertains the audience while conforming to a
traditional sense of justice.
3. Comedy: involves no terrible tragedy and ends
happily for the main characters since aims to
amuse the audience.
➢ High: intellectual drama that relies
heavily on verbal wit (puns, intellectual
jokes or humor).
➢ Low: involves physical action; less
intellectual than high comedy.
➢ Romantic: involves a love affair with
various obstacles but ends in a happy
union.
4. Farce: characterized by broad humor, wild
antics, slapstick or other physical humor and
involves riotous laughter requiring no serious
thought from the audience.
5. Fantasy: involves characters with supernatural
skills as there is an involvement of magic,
pseudo-science, horror, spooky themes,
characters and special effects.
6. Musical Drama: tells a story through acting,
dialogue, dance and music; may be comedic or
serious. Musical drama became popular as
opera.
7. Tragicomedy: combination of comedy and
tragedy. It incorporates jokes to lighten the tone,
therefore, it may be a tragic play with a happy
ending.
ELEMENTS OF DRAMA
“Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is
serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in
language embellished with each kind of artistic
ornament, the several kinds being found in separate
parts of the play; in the form of action, not of
narrative; with incidents arousing pity and fear,
wherewith to accomplish its katharsis of such
emotions… every Tragedy, therefore, must have six
parts, which parts determine its quality — namely,
Plot, Characters, Diction, Thought, Spectacle,
Melody.” – Aristotle
1. Plot: defined by Aristotle as “the arrangement of
the incidents.”
➢ Astonishment: element of surprise
 ➢ Reversal: involves peripeteia (an ironic
twist/change or reversal of fortune) and
anagnorisis (discovery).
➢ Recognition: the character’s shift from
ignorance to knowledge.
➢ Suffering: involves a destructive or
painful situation resulting from reversal
or recognition. It results in catharsis.
2. Characters
➢ Realistic: accurate imitations of
individualized persons.
➢ Non-realistic: do not have distinct
qualities, and are often underdeveloped
and unbelievable.
➢ Static: are fixed or unchanging
characters
➢ Dynamic: growing or developing
characters.
➢ Round: undergoes a transformation or
change as the play progresses
➢ Flat: undeveloped since they do not
undergo change even though they are
interesting, vital, and amusing.
➢ Symbolic: represent an idea, way of life,
moral value or an abstract idea.
➢ Stock/stereotyped: characters that
conform to a fixed or general pattern of
behavior.
3. Theme: the main idea or underlying meaning a
writer explores in a novel, short story, or other
literary work.
4. Diction (lexis)/Dialogue: the language,
utterances, or conversation spoken between or
among characters. also contains words and
rhetorical passages that describe characters,
their emotions, or even the theme of the play.
: carried out through…
➢ Point of view: a device in which the hero
or villain reveals his/her thoughts
directly to the audience
➢ Aside: a device in which the characters
utter brief remarks to the audience or to
another character which the other
characters do not hear
➢ Soliloquy: a speech meant to be heard
by the audience but not by other
characters onstage, thus, involves the
characters thinking out loud.
➢ Monologue: a speech by a single
character involving someone else or a
group of people without another
character’s response.
5. Music/melody/rhythm: performance elements
such as the rhythm of the actors’ voices as they
speak, their delivery of lines and other nonverbal
gestures, as well as the musical elements used as
backdrop
6. Spectacle/opsis: visual and technical elements
(mise en scène) of a drama production.
➢ Costumes: clothing or accessories worn
by the actors to portray character
➢ Make-up: facial or body make-up, wigs,
prosthetics to help the actor depict a
character.
➢ Properties/props: any article, except
costume or scenery, used as part of a
dramatic performance; any movable
object during a performance.
➢ Scene: a traditional segment in drama to
indicate a change in time or location, a
transition from one sub-plot to another
and to introduce a character or to
rearrange the actors onstage. Plays are
composed of acts, broken down into
scenes.
➢ Scenery: the theatrical equipment
(curtains, flats, backdrops, or platforms)
used in a drama to depict the
environment.
➢ Lights/lighting/light effects: the
placement, color, and intensity of lights
to indicate the setting, mood or time
frame.
➢ Sound/sound effects: the kind,
intensity, and quality of the sounds
heard during a dramatic performance to
depict the environment, mood, setting,
and theme.
➢ Techniques and literary devices
▪ Dramatic irony: a device in
which a character holds a
position not expected or
anticipated by the audience
▪ Fourth wall: the imaginary wall
of the box theater setting,
removed to allow the audience
to see the action.
7. Theater space: the type of space where the
drama may be performed.
➢ Proscenium: the most basic type of
stage in which the actors perform with
the audience seated in front of them.
➢ Thrust: a tongue-like stage configuration
in which the actors perform with the
audience on three sides
➢ In the round: a theater configuration
with the actors in a central arena with
the audience surrounding them on all
sides.
➢ Traverse: a stage configuration in which
the audience sits on two sides, creating
an intimate atmosphere.
➢ Black box: a performance space with no
fixed seating, allowing for flexibility to
match the staging needs of the drama.
➢ Touring: has no real/fixed place; allows
the drama to be performed anywhere
SI NELSON, ANG NANAY AT ANG PANCIT CANTON
Characters
- Nelson
- Nanay
- Persons/ghosts
➢ Art teacher
➢ Elementary classmate
➢ Child version of Nelson (grade 2)
➢ College roommate
Theatre of the absurd

- Shows the world as an incomprehensible place.

- Shows a sense of oddity
- Emotional identification w/ the characters is
replaced by a puzzled, critical attention
- Actors have to act against the dialogue
- Ionesco: multiple, complex, many dimensional,
and exists on a number of different levels at one
and the same time
- Reality can only be conveyed by being acted out
in all its complexity

Deconstruction

- a critical outlook concerned with the relationship

between text and meaning
- want to break the construction between
topics/commonalities
- is generally used to examine the individual work
not as a self-contained artifact but as a product
of relations with other texts or discourses,
literary and nonliterary.
- there is transcendental signified (no ultimate
reality or end to all references from one sign to
another, no unifying element to all things.) –
Jacques Derrida
- “There is nothing outside the text.”: all of the
references used to interpret a text are
themselves texts,

Important terms

➢ Binary opposition: dichotomies that are

actually evaluative; underlie human acts
and practices.
: common between structural and
deconstruction
➢ Differance: indicates meaning is based
on differences, is always postponed, and
is ultimately undecidable.