LITERATURE 1 REVIEWER
© Mark Mostera
01 Tradition and Individual Talent
- T.S. Eliot (Thomas Sterns
Eliot)
- From the great critic’s book
- Published in 1919
“Poetry is an escape from emotion”
- Commonly people write about
love. But it becomes
tacky/nakakasawa.
- Poetry is the spontaneous
overflow of feelings (Thomas
Wordsworth)
- Feeling recollected in
tranquility
Aesthetic Distance
- Going away from the subject
(time and space)
- GK. Persona – mask
- You have a role to portray
“The business of the poet is NOT to
find new emotions”
- Writers must SHOW not TELL
- A writer must not say that a
poem is about sadness, but
make the reader feel it.
Which is more important? Emotion
or excellence?
- There must be a balance of
both for the writer to make a
good work of literature.
- “art for art’s sake” is only pure
skill
- The form must match the
content
“The emotion of the art must be
impersonal”
- Writer surrenders himself
wholly to the work
- The artist is different with the
work
Depersonalization
- The artist is different from the
man. A separation between
creator of art from the person
experiencing life.
- The mind is a container
(receptacle)
- The person/poet serves as a
medium
- Ex. Recording a conversation
in the fx for the sake of
inspiring a work of literature
Tradition
- Routine/way of life
- In writing, being traditional is
not encouraged.
- If tradition simply follows the
old ways without improving/
adding something new, then it
should be discouraged.
When praising a poet…
- We look for something different
- What do we see in the author
that is different?
- In reality, you cannot be
original without coming from
someone/something else.
MATURITY
- Growing into what makes you
better at what you do, while
acknowledging where you
come from
“tradition involves a historical sense”
- The past is not only past but it
still has a presence till now.
- A traditional writer? Must be
TIMELESS and TEMPORAL
“you cannot value an artist alone”
-there is always a comparison among
other works.
“poet must be conscious of the main
current”
- There are works that are being
remade, why?
“we know so much more than those
who came before us”
- We already know the
standards, now it is time that
we input new ideas, strategies,
and methods.
02 Literary ideas or standards
- By Paz Latorena
- Former UST professor
Literary Criticism
- Technical
- Formal action of the mind
- Deliberate (sasadyain)
- In this scenario, when
everything is gone, man will
turn to literature.
- In doing this, man must have
good literary taste.
LITERARY VALUES
1. Intellectual Value
- Utak ang pinapagana
- Literature appeals to intellect
- 5 senses
- Literature comes from our eyes
to our brains
- You grow smarter when you
read but it is not necessary
that you use/store everything
you read
2. Emotional Value
- What appeals to emotion
- Often what gives a literary
work its distinguishing mark
- Remains in you

Form = structure Pleasant vs Unpleasant Emotion

Ex. Pleasant:
- Psychoanalysis - Good for senses
- Feminist
- Marxism (Rich vs Poor) Unpleasant:
- Much more impactful, it sticks
Literary Taste to the reader
- Personal - Authors use tragedy/sadness
- May improve (constant and - Something painful can be
repeating) turned into something
- The pressure of having good beautiful.
literary taste falls on the
teacher of literature “emotions that conducts our behavior
is the best literary works”
“Eventually, everything will let man
down” 3. Ethical Value
- This will not be a reason to give - Is the work good or evil?
up. - Morality vs. immorality
- Purpose is to instruct or to
pleasure
“literature talks about the whole life” - 19 lines that has a repeating
refrain
Retribution
- Return into original state Sestina
- Bringing higher values to - 39 lines, 6 lines per stanza
readers - Ends with 3 lines

THE DIFFERENT GENRES OF Free verse

LITERATURE - Modern approach to poetry
- Up to what the artist prefers
Literature
- “literate” – letter Narrative Poem
- “panitikan” – titik - Has a beginning, middle, and
end
POEM
Lyric poem
Oral tradition - Show images
- Repetition is the means of - Show emotion
remembering
- Through talking or singing Dramatic poem
- Bugtong/Riddles - Either tragedy or comedy
- Epics (Iliad, oddessy, Lam ang,
hud hud, mahabarata) PROSE
- Salawikain
Genres of Short story and Novel
Printed/written literature
- Comes from oral tradition 1. Realist fiction
- There is nothing extraordinary
Sonnet to the story
- Two types: Petrarchan (Italian) - TFIOS is an example
/ Shakespearean (English) - Social realism is a subgenre
- Sonata is a smaller version of (which includes Jose Rizal)
sonnet
2. Fantasy
Haiku - Harry potter
- Originated from japan - Janusila
- Images from nature - Key word: supernatural
- (5,7,5)
- Filipino version: Tanaga 3. Science Fiction
(7,7,7,7) 4. Thriller/ Horror
5. Western
Villanelle 6. Romance
- French 7. Detective
- Do not go gentle into that good 8. Historical
night (Dylan Thomas)
 - May be historical figure in 4. Addressee
historical time or historical - Sino yung kausap
time and fictional character - There are levels
- Fictional character serves as a
witness 5. Images
- Things that are described with
Drama the 5 senses
- Play (One act or full length) 6. Figures of speech
- Musical 7. Literal meaning
- Opera 8. Metaphorical meaning

Creative non fiction What to look for in a short story?

- Memoir 1. Characters
- Biography/autobiography - Keep the story moving
- Literary journalism (Nick - Involved in the plot
Joaquin) - Protagonist and antagonist
- There are major and minor
Other emerging genres: characters
- Film - Minor characters’ role is to
- Blogposts influence the actions of the
- Performance poetry main characters
- Songs
- Monologue/spoken word 2. Setting
poetry - Physical place (SPACE)
- TIME
What to look for in poetry? - Pinpoints the social situations
1. Dramatic situation while the story is happening
- Setting (SITUATION)
- Why it began - May sometimes be considered
- What is literally happening as a character
- A good dramatic situation is
when you can imagine it 3. Point of view

2. Persona Third person

- Absentee persona: wala yung
kausap/yung nagsasalita Omniscient author
- The one speaking - Invisible
- Not around
3. Persona’s tone - Enters the minds of all the
- Important characters
- Look for the tone in the words - Knows everything
of the work
- Some words may be more Limited omniscient
intense to portray a stronger - Has access to only one
emotion character’s mind

Objective author
- External signs only (senses)
- Not omniscient but impersonal
Second Person
- The “you” in narrating
- Outside the story, talking to
the one inside the story
First person
- The “I”
- Usually the protagonist
- Without biases
4. Plot
- Usual take is the mountain
- New take is the plot is only a
single line
5. Conflict
- Struggles
- External and internal conflicts
- Choice a and choice b must be
of equal weight
- Conflict may be resolved or not
- Must have illumination/
epiphany
03 The inferno canto V
- Dante Alighieri
- La Divina comedia (divine
comedy)
- Written while in exile (1302-
1321)
- First major written work using
the Italian language
- Terza Rima rhyme scheme (like
a chain) (aba, bcb, cdc…)
“Abandon all hope ye who enter here”
- There are 9 circles of hell
- Each circle gets smaller the
lower you go (funnel)
- Dante was accompanied by
Virgil
How did Dante end up in the inferno?
- He was walking on a hill when
3 beasts told him to enter a
hole on the ground
“Alighieri harkens back to the poetic
tradition of those who came before
him”
- He includes poets in his
writing
- Virgil
- Homer
- Longinus
- Ovid
Minos
- A monster based on mythology
that is present on the entrance
to hell
- Humans would confess to all
their sins because of their fear
towards Minos
- Sinners elect their hell by an
act of their own will
“it is his fate to enter every door”
- Virgil talking about Dante
- It is crucial that Dante be able
to enter hell so that he can
explore purgatory and
Paradiso
The second circle of hell
- Desire = appetite
- Sinners are tossed around and
turned
Sinners that Dante found on the
second circle of hell:
1. Semiramis
- Queen of Assyria who took the
power of the throne
- Slept with the king to gain
power
 2. Dido - Will be Dante’s guide in
- Founder of city of cartage purgatory and Paradiso
- Killed herself for love - Writing her in the book is a
way for Dante to “meet” her
3. Cleopatra
- Died of snake poison La comedia (the books)
- Somehow an autobiography
4. Helen - We must differentiate Dante
- “face that launched a the writer vs. Dante the
thousand ships” persona
- Allegorical journey
5. Achilles - It is written in Italian so that
- In love with Briseis there are more readers

6. Paris Why it lasted?

7. Tristan - It is a postmodern classic.
8. Paolo and Francesca - Autobiography or meta
- May be contemporary to Dante fictional?
(Lived in the same era) - Historic metafiction (it wrote
- Forbidden love about people in history)
- Paolo was not supposed to
marry Francesca
- They are stuck together in hell
as a reminder of their wrong
doing on earth
- Cai’na = another place in hell
- Dante talked to Francesca in
pity and sorrow
- Dante asked why she fell in
love with him: while rehearsing
a play, rhyme of Lancelot

The Author
- Dante Alighieri
- Born in 1265
- From Florence, Italy
- Love interest: Beatrice
Portinari
- Beatrice is the reason why
Dante wrote the books
- He was against pope Benedict
VIII so he was placed in exile

Beatrice
- Not seen in hell in the books