-literature in its broadest sense, is everything
LITERATURE
PRELIMS REVIEWER
WHY LITERATURE?
MARIO VARGAS LLOSA
-born in Peru, 1936
-one of the pioneers of the Boom Period in Latin
American aLiterature
-awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature (2010)
-won the Nobel for “his cartography of
structures of power and his trenchant images of
the individual’s resistance, revolt and defeat”
❖ According to Llosa, specialization leads
to a lack of social understanding, to the
division of human beings into ghettos of
technicians and specialists
LITERARY TERMS
● Quixotic
-from ​Don Quixote​ (​Miguel de Cervantes​)
-hopeful/romantic in a way that is not practical
● Rabelaisian
-​Francois Rabelais​ (​Gargantua & Pantraguel​)
-gross robust humor; extravagance of caricature
● Orwellian
-​George Orwell
-destructive to the welfare of an open society
● Sadistic
-​Marquis de Sade
-deriving pleasure from pain of others
● Masochistic
-​Sacher-Masoch
-deriving gratification from self-pain
INTRODUCTION TO
LITERATURE
ESSENCE & SIGNIFICANCE
-“litera” which means “letter”
-deals with ideas, thoughts and emotions of man
→ thus, it can be said the literature is the story
of man
-comes from the french phrase “belles lettres”
which means “beautiful writing”
that has ever been written
-the best way to understand human nature fully
and to know a nation completely is to study
literature
-through this, we learn the innermost feelings
and thoughts of people - the most real part of
themselves
→ thus, we gain an understanding not only of
others but more importantly, of ourselves and of
life itself
-offers us an experience in which we should
participate as we read and test what we read by
our own experience
-does not yield much unless we bring something
of ourselves to it
-is a faithful production of life, in a sense it is a
product and a commentary on life process
-illuminates life
-is our life’s story including its struggles, ideas,
failures, sacrifices and happiness
-appeals to man’s higher nature and its needs -
emotional, spiritual, intellectual and creative
→ like other forms of art, literature entertains
and gives pleasure; it fires the imagination and
arouses noble emotions and it enriches man by
enabling him to reflect on life and by filling him
with new ideas
HALLMARKS OR CHARACTERISTICS
-ability to judge of literature is based on the
application of certain recognizable standards of
good literature
➢ Universality
-forever relevant in terms of theme
➢ Permanence
-endures across time
● Timeliness
-occurring at a particular time
● Timelessness
-remaining invariable throughout time
➢ Artistry
-quality w/c appeals to beauty
➢ Suggestiveness
-moves us deeply and stir our creative
imagination
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 ➢ Intellectual Value ➢ Drama
-helps us realize fundamental truths about life -tragedy, comedy, dramatic history, farce,
and human nature melodrama
➢ Spiritual Value ● Prose Drama
-brings out moral values which makes us better -a drama in prose form
persons -consists entirely of dialogues in prose
and is meant to be acted on stage
MAJOR LITERARY FORMS ● Verse Drama
➢ Prose
-written in paragraph form ESSENCE and SIGNIFICANCE
-expressed in ordinary language OF LITERATURE
-appeals to the intellect -deals with ideas, thoughts and emotions of man
-aims to convince, inform, instruct, imitate, -can be said the literature is the story of man
reflect -everything that has ever been written
● Fiction -people read literature for information,
-something invented, imagined or amusement, higher and keener pleasure, for
feigned cultural, upliftment and for discovery of broader
to be true dimensions in life
-ghost and horror stories, crime and
mystery series, adventure stories, love HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT
stories, science fiction, fantasy, thriller,
short story, fables, folktales and OF PHILIPPINE LITERATURE
fairytales ➢ Pre-Colonial Literature
● Non-fiction -spontaneous and instinctive
-formal essay, literary criticism, → oral tradition
scientific -expressed in its own dialect
Prose, historical prose -crude in ideology and phraseology
● Creative Nonfiction -longest period
-personal essay, memoir, autobiography,
travel writing, food writing, profiles common literary forms:
● Myths
➢ Poetry -considered as sacred
-written in stanza or verse form -deal mainly with the creation of the
-expressed in metrical, rhythmical and figurative universe, origin of man, gods and
language supernatural beings and native culture
-appeals to the emotion heroes
-aims to stir the imagination and set an ideal of ● Legends
how life should be -secular time; more recent than myth
● Lyric -prose narratives like myths that are
-ode, elegy, song, sonnet, simple lyric, regarded true by the narrator and
haiku audience but are set in a period more
● Narrative remote, when the world was much as it
-epic, ballad, metrical tale, metrical is today
romance ● Fables
-stories that use animals as characters
and are meant to impart lessons

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 ● Proverb
➔ Didacticism
-contents
➔ Conciseness
-form
● Tanaga
-short folk poems composed of 7
syllables, 4 lines and full of metaphors
● Riddle
-traditional verbal expression containing
1 or 2 descriptive elements, a pair of
which may be in opposition to each
other, the referent of the elements is to
be guessed
● Folk Epic
-one of the most important literature
-narratives of sustained length, based on
oral tradition, revolving around
supernatural events and heroic deeds, in
the form of verse (either chanted or
sung) with a seriousness of purpose,
embodying or validating the beliefs,
customs, ideals or life values of the
people
➢ Spanish Colonization
-centered on Christian faith
-imitative of Spanish themes, forms & traditions
-repetitious plots
-the rise in the printing press in the 19th century
enabled faster dissemination of works
virtues:
❖ Virtue of Isolation
❖ Virtue of Resistance
common literary types:
● Pasyon
-passion and death of Christ
-replaced the epic poems of the pagan
past
-later on referred to as the “Senakulo”
● Secular Literature
➔ Komedya
-native poetic theater
-plots were drawn from
medieval Spanish ballads
-later known as “Moro-moro”
→ poetic theater about
Christian and Moorish warriors
➔ Awit (12 syllables;
dodecasyllabic) and Korido (8
syllables; octosyllabic)
-Philippine metrical romances
-always chanted and not simply
read
-difference between the two lies
in its structure
● Prose
➢ American Colonization (1898)
-Spanish continued to dominate the elite
-English became the official language of the
communication
-”Thomasites” became the Filipinos’ first
teachers
● Poetry
-used as a vehicle for language-learning
rather than an art in itself
-used for personal purposes
-used as a means of promoting national
sentiments
● Fiction
-unified single impression/effect
through atmosphere, tone and style
-plausible characterization
-a well-defined plot structure
-control of language as medium
-interesting situation & significant
theme
some important writers and works:
*Lope K. Santos - “Ang Pangginagera”
*Jose Corazon de Jesus - “Husena Batute”
*Jose Garcia Villa - advocated “art for art’s sake”
→ there’s no social-political function;
It’s just for aesthetics
*Severino Reyes - “Sarsuela Walang Sugat”
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 ➢ Japanese Occupation
-Japanese pushed for the use of Tagalog and
de-emphasized English
-some writers who used to write in English
turned to Filipino
-some newspapers continued operation but most
of them were stopped by the Japanese
-Anti-Japanese writings were discouraged
-there was an underground movement in
nationalist literature
-Filipino literature was given a break during this
period
-volume of short stories was published (25
Pinakamabuting Kwento ng Taong 1943)
-drama experienced a lull during this period
because movie houses showing American films
were closed
→ big movie houses were just made to show
stage shows; many of the plays were
reproductions of English plays to Tagalog
*Macario Pineda, Liwayway Arceo, NVM
Gonzales
➢ Contemporary Period
-entry of new criticism
-resurgence of nationalist movement with
students as core during the Martial Law years
-PH Lit. flourished
→ it continues to grow in various languages
especially with new publications
-Filipino writers continue to write poetry and
short fiction with the varied themes (social
commitment, gender/ethnic related,
personal/impersonal, among others)
-emergence of creative nonfiction have widened
the span of prose thereby is a positive sign to
encourage more writers to publish
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT
OF WORLD LITERATURE
➢ Ancient Period
-first literature for children was found on
Sumerian clay tablets in Ur (in Mesopotamia)
literary types:​ lullabies, proverbs, fables
-epics are a popular genre (ex: Gilgamesh)
-religion was a primary source of lit before the
rise of ancient Greece
-religious literature has an ancient history in
India and China
➢ Classical Period (up to A.D 100)
-rise of Greek and Roman lit with texts ranging
from drama, poetry, history and philosophy
-writers such as Homer (Greek writer of the
Iliad, Odyssey), Virgil (Roman writer of The
Aeneid), Ovid (Roman poet) and philosophers
such as Plato and Aristotle gained popularity
➢ Medieval or Middle Ages (100-1500)
-establishment of Christianity in Europe
-in the west, the fusion of Christian theology and
classical philosophy formed the basis of the
medieval habit of interpreting life symbolically
-interpretative methods the early Christians
applied to the Scriptures were extended to all
forms of literature
-main literary achievement was vernacular
works
-medieval drama grew out of the religious
ceremonies of the Catholic Church
-majority of literature was written anonymously
➢ Renaissance (1500-1700)
-“rebirth”
-stirred a new spirit of artistic and intellectual
inquiry and restoration of the spirit of ancient
Greece and Rome
-printing became widespread from 15th century
onwards
-a shift from religious to secular writing
→ a weakening influence of the Catholic
Church in the society
Famous writers: S ​ hakespeare, Miguel de
Cervantes, Francois Rabelais
➢ Romanticism (1800)
-a breakdown of rigid ideas about the structure
and purpose of society and the known world
-an emphasis on the importance of the
individual’s experience, rather than
interpretations handed down by church or
tradition
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-features of Romantic literature
→ emphasized the individual’s experience,
feeling and emotion, which were deemed
superior to logic
-poetry was believed to be the highest form of
literature
→ novels were regarded only of secondary
importance
-romanticism in England developed earlier than
in America
→ gothic type of literature
Famous writers: P ​ ercy Bysshe Shelley, William
Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Jane
Austen, Mary Chelley, Edgar Allan Poe
➢ Postmodernism (mid19th century to the
present)
-concerned with imprecision and unreliability of
language
-“Deconstruction” (Jacques Derrida) became a
popular mode of criticism
→ involves the critique of the criteria of
certainty, identity and truth
-there’s a disintegration of concepts, including
the nature of language, the idea of knowledge,
the notion of universal truth
-there’s a rise in multiculturalism, paving the
way for cultural studies

➢ Realism (mid-19th century)

-first developed in France in mid-19th century,
this period is best represented by the novel
-writers during this period became masters at
psychological characterization, detailed
descriptions of everyday life and in dialogue that
captures the idioms of natural speech
-realists endeavored to accurately represent
contemporary culture and people from all walks
of life and addressed socio-economic concerns
-exerted a profound influence in drama
Famous writers: C ​ harles Dickens, Fyodor
Dostoevsky, Guy de Maupassant, Leo Tolstoy,
Henry James

➢ Modernism (early to mid-20th century)

-world was in between wars (WW1 & WW2)
which radically changed the society
-modernism’s roots are in the rapidly changing
technology of the late 19th century and in the
theories of Freud, Marx and Nietzsche
-movement’s concerns were with the
accelerating pace of society toward destruction
and meaninglessness
-this period influenced painting first
(Impressionism and Cubism)
Famous writers:​ Virginia Woolf, James Joyce,
T.S Eliot, Ezra Pound

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