21st Century Literature

NATIONAL ARTISTS FOR LITERATURE

1. Amado Vera Hernandez (Region 3 – Central Luzon, 1903-1970) was a Filipino writer
and labor reader who was known for his criticism of social injustices in the Philippines and was
later imprisoned for his involvement in the communist movement. He was the central figure in a
landmark legal case that took 13 years to settle. He was born in Hagonoy, Bulacan but grew up
in Tondo, Manila, where he studied at the Manila High School and at the American
Correspondent School. While still a teenager, he began writing in Tagalog for the newspaper
Watawat (flag). He would later write a column for the Tagalog publication Pagkakaisa (unity) and
become editor of Mabuhay (long live).

2. Jose Garcia Villa (National Capital Region, 1906-1997) was Filipino poet, literary
critic, short story writer, and painter. He was awarded the national artist of the Philippines title for
literature in 1973, as well as the Guggenheim Fellowship in Creative Writing by Conrad Aiken.
He was known to have introduced the “reversed consonance rhyme scheme” in writing poetry, as
well as the extensive use of punctuation marks especially commas, which made him known as
the comma poet. He used the pen name Doveglion (derived from “dove, eagle, lion”), based on
the characters he derived from himself.

3. Nick Joaquin or Nicomedes Marquez Joaquin (National Capital Region, 1917-2004)

was a Filipino writer, historian, and journalist and best known for his short stories and novels in
the English language. He also wrote using the pen name Quijano de Manila. He was considered
as the most important Filipino writer in English, and the third most important overall, after Jose
Rizal and Claro M. Recto. His works includes: May Day Eve, The Woman Who had Two
Navels, Summer Solstice.

4. Carlos Peña Romulo (National Capital Region, 1899-1985) was a Filipino diplomat,
statesman, soldier, journalist and author. He was a reporter at 16, a newspaper editor at the age
of 20, and a publisher at 32. He was a co-founder of the Boy Scouts of the Philippines, a
general in the US Army and the Philippine Army, university president, President of the UN
General Assembly, was eventually named one of the Philippines’ National Artist in Literature,
and was the recipient of many other honors and honorary degrees. His works includes I saw
the Fall of the Philippines, I Walked with Heroes, I See the Philippines Rise etc.

5. Francisco “Franz” Arcellana (National Capital region, 1916-2002) was a Filipino

writer, poet, essayist, critic, journalist, and sand teacher. Arcellana already had ambitions of
becoming a writer during his years in elementary. His actual writing, however, started when he
became member of the Torres Torch Organization during his high school years. Arcellana
continued writing in various school papers at the University of the Philippines Diliman. He later
on received a Rockefeller Grant and became a follower in creative writing the University of Iowa
and Breadloaf’s writer’s conference from 1956-1957.

6. Rolando Santos Tinio (National Capital Region, 1937-1997) was a Filipino poet,
dramatist, director, actor, critic, essayist, and educator. He was a Philippine National Artist for
Theater and Literature. He was born in Gagalangin, Tondo, Manila on March 5, 1937. As a
child, Tinio was fond of organizing and directing his playmates for costumed celebrations. He
was an active participant in the Filipino movie industry and enjoyed working with Philippine
celebrities who he himself had admired in his childhood. Tinio himself became a film actor and
scriptwriter. He is often described as a religious, well-behaved, and gifted person. Tinio
graduated with honors (a “magna cum laude” achiever) with a degree in Philosophy from the
Royal and Pontifical University of Santo Tomas at age 18 in 1955 and an M.F.A. degree in
Creative Writing: Poetry from the State University of Iowa. Tinio was also an actor, director, and
a set and costume designer (ncca.gov.ph, 2016; “Rolando Tinio,” 2016).

7. NVM Gonzalez (Region 4B – MIMAROPA, 1915-1999) is a fictionist, poet, and

essayist. Gonzalez received a special award in the 1940 Commonwealth Literary Contest for
the Winds of April, the Philippine Republic Award of Merit for Literature in English in 1954, the
Republic Cultural Heritage in 1960, the Jose Rizal Pro Patria Award in 1961, and the Patnubay
ng Sining, at Kalinangan award in 1971 form the city government of Manila. In 1993, he
received the Gawad CCP Para sa Sining in literature. He was conferred National Artist status in
1997. He was born on 8th September 1915 in Romblon, Philippines. Gonzalez, however, was
raised in Mansalay, a southern town of the Philippine province of Oriental Mindoro. On 14 April
1987, the University of the Philippines conferred on N.V.M. Gonzalez the degree of Doctor of
Humane Letters, honoris causa. Some of his works are The Winds of April, A Season of
Grace, and The Happiest Boy in The World.

8. Edith Tiempo (Region 2 – Cagayan Valley, 1919-2011) was a National Artist for
Literature. She was a poet, short story writer, novelist, literary critic, and teacher. Writers who
have attended the Siliman National Writers Workshop know her simply as “Mom.” She and her
equally eminent husband, the late Dr. Edilberto K. Tiempo, co-founded the workshop in 1962
and have since guided and inspired many writers. She had an M.A. in Creative Writing from the
State University of Iowa, and a Ph. D. from the University of Denver. Among her numerous
works are three collections of poetry; Tracks of Boylon (1966), Beyond, Extensions (1992) and
The Charmer’s Box (1993). Her novels include A Blade of Fern (1978), His Native Coast
(1979; First Prize, CCP Award for the Novel) and Alien Corn (1993). Her other honor and
award is the Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas (UMPIL award/Balagtas Bicentennial
national Achievement Literary award) which she and her husband received 1988.

9. F. Sionil Jose or Francisco Sionil Jose (Region 1 – Ilocos Region, born 1924) is
one of the most widely read Filipino writers in the English language. His novels and short stories
depict the social underpinnings of class struggles and colonialism in Filipino society. Jose’s
works – written in English – have been translated into 22 languages, including Korean,
Indonesian, Czech, Russian, Latvian, Ukrainian and Dutch. Jose was born in Rosales,
Pangasinan, the setting of many of his stories. He spent his childhood in Barrio Cabigawan,
Rosales, where he first began to write. His works include: My Brother, My Executioner, Mass,
The Pretenders (F. Sionil Jose, BBC.com, 30 July 2003; ncca.gov.ph, 2016, “F. Sionil Jose,”
2016)

10. Alejandro Reyes Roces (National Capital Region, 1924-2011) was a Filipino author,
essayist, dramatist and a National Artist of the Philippines for Literature. He served as Secretary
of Education from 1961 to 1965, during the term of Philippine President Diosdado Macapagal.
Alejandro Roces is known for: changing the date of Philippine Independence Day from July 4 to
June 12; recovering the stolen original manuscripts of Noli Me Tangere, El Filibusterismo and Mi
ultimo Adios; changing the language used in Philippine passports, coins, bills and diplomas to
Wikang Pambansa. He attended elementary and high school at the Ateneo de Manila University,
before moving to the University of Arizona and then Arizona State University for his tertiary
education. He graduated with a B. A. in Fine Arts and, not long after, attained his M. A. form Far
Eastern University back in the Philippines. He has since received honorary doctorates from
Tokyo University, Baguio’s St. Louis University, Polytechnic University of the Philippines, and the
Ateneo De Manila University. (ncca.gov.ph, 2016; “Alejandro Roces,’ 2016). His works include
“Of Cocks and Kites (1959), Fiesta (1980), and Something to Crow About (2005)

11. Virgilio S. Almario (born March 9, 1944) better known by his pen name, RIO ALMA, is
a Filipino artist, poet, critic, translator, editor, teacher and cultural manager. He is a National
Artist of the Philippines and currently serves as the chairman of the Komisyon sa Wikang
Filipino (KWF), the government agency mandated to promote and standardize the use of the
Filipino language. Growing up in Bulacan among peasants, Almario sought his education at
Manila and completed his degree in A.B. Political Science at the University of the Philippines. A
prolific writer, he spearheaded the second successful modernist movement in Filipino poetry
together with Rogelio Mangahas and Ted Antonio. His earliest pieces of literary criticism were
collected in Ang Makata sa Panahon ng Makina (1972), now considered the first book of literary
criticism in Filipino. Later, in the years of martial law, he set aside modernism and formalism and
took interest in nationalism, politics, and activist movement. As critic, his critical works deal with
the issue of national language. (ncca.gov.ph, 2016; “Virgilio S. Almario,’ 2016)

12. Bienvenido Lumbera (Region 4A – CALABARZON, born in 1932) is a Filipino poet,

critic and dramatist. He is a National Artist of the Philippines and a recipient of the Ramon
Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communications. He won a
numerous literary awards, including the National Memorial Awards. Lumbera was born in Lipa
on April 11, 1932. Lumbera received his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Indiana University
in 1968. Lumbera is now widely acknowledged as one of the pillars of contemporary Philippine
literature, cultural studies and film, having written and edited numerous books on literary history,
literary criticism, and film. (ncca.gov.ph, 2016;” Bienvenido Lumbera “,’ 2016)
 13. Cirilo F. Bautista (National Capital Region, born 1941) is a poet, fictionist, critic, and
a writer of nonfiction. He received his degrees in AB Literature from the University of Santo
Tomas in 1963, MA Literature from St. Louis University, Baguio City in 1968, and Doctor of Arts
in Language and Literature from De La Salle University-Manila in 1990. He received a
fellowship to attend the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa (1968-1969) and
was awarded an honorary degree – the only Filipino to have been so honored there. He is a co-
founding member of the Philippine Literary Arts Council (PLAC) and a member of the Manila
Critics Circle, Philippine Center of International PEN and the Philippine Writers Academy. His
awards include the Palanca, Free Press, and National Book Award from Manila Critics Circle,
Gawad Balagtas, and the Pablo Roman Prize for the Novel, and the highest accolades from the
City of Manila, Quezon city, and Iligan City.

Hi Zyrus! For this part, I included the life of the national artists but we focused in their
works as authors. Please keep that in mind for the Unit Test!

Activity 1
Choose one work by a National Artist for Literature and look it up on the internet. How did their
literary piece contribute to preserving Filipino heritage? The work you select may not
necessarily be about politics of the country. Some of their novels are about romance and life in
the province. Still, they contribute uniquely to our pride as Filipinos…but how? What value can
they contain?

THEMES OF CONTEMPORARY PHILIPPINE LITERATURE

These are the themes explored by modern Philippine literature. They are everyday issues we
face as a society and yet many Filipinos are indifferent to these realities as long as they are
unaffected by it.
 Poverty
 Gender Inequalities- Legal, social and cultural situation in which sex and/or gender
determine different rights and dignity for women and men, which are reflected in their
unequal access to or enjoyment of rights, as well as the assumption of stereotyped
social and cultural roles. 
In Asia, the Philippines is the top-performing country in closing gender inequality
 Corruption- abuse of entrusted power for private gain
 Racism- discrimination based on one’s race or lahi
 Philippine diaspora (OFW) – about life abroad and their struggles to be treated fairly
 Romance

Activity 2
Select a news article from reputable newspaper publishers that demonstrate at least one of the
themes discussed in class. In what way is this news relevant to you? What can you do as a
student to alleviate the consequences of such issues?

LITERARY PERSPECTIVES

Literary perspectives help us explain why people might interpret the same text in a
variety of ways. Perspectives help us understand what is important to individual readers, and
they show us why those readers end up seeing what they see. One way to imagine a literary
perspective is to think of it as a lens through which we can examine a text. No single lens gives
us the clearest view, but it is sometimes fun to read a text with a particular perspective in mind
because you often end up seeing something intriguing and unexpected. While readers typically
apply more than one perspective at a time, the best way to understand these perspectives is to
use them one at a time. What follows is a summary of some of the best-known literary
perspectives. These descriptions are extremely brief, and none fully explains everything you
might want to know about the perspective in question, but there is enough here for you to get an
idea about how readers use them.

The Psychological Perspective

Some literary critics call this the psychological or character perspective because its purpose is
to examine the internal motivations of literary characters. When we hear actors say that they are
searching for their character’s motivation, they are using something like this perspective. As a
form of criticism, this perspective deals with works of literature as expressions of the personality,
state of mind, feelings, and desires of the author or of a character within the literary work. As
readers, we investigate the psychology of a character or an author to figure out the meaning of
a text (although sometimes an examination of the author’s psychology is considered
biographical criticism, depending upon
your point of view).

For this perspective, one way of

analyzing the psychology of the
characters is through identifying their
elements (scenes in the plot or
characteristics) that pertain to the
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs:

For example, we used the story of

Frozen and analyzed its characters:

Physiological needs consists

of basic needs and were shown
when Anna prepared with food
and clothing for the travel she
needed to make to look for Elsa.
It’s also seen when Elsa left the kingdom and built a castle (shelter) for herself.

Safety Needs was what Elsa prioritized when she stopped playing with Anna so that she
won’t be able to harm her sister again like what happened when they were young.

Belongingness and Love Needs: The movie Frozen was centered on sisterly love
instead of the romantic love that Anna was hoping to get from Prince Hans. Anna
insisted that no matter what, regardless of Elsa’s enormous powers, her sister belongs in
their kingdom because that’s where their family is—each other and the citizens of
Arendelle.

Esteem Needs encompass confidence, strength, self-belief, personal and social

acceptance, and respect from others. The scene wherein Elsa was able to accept her
powers and not fear them exuded her fulfilled esteem needs.

The movie does not show any character reaching the self-actualization stage. It is the
highest level in Maslow's hierarchy, and refer to the realization of a person's potential,
self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences. Maslow (1943) describes
this level as the desire to accomplish everything that one can, to become the most that
one can be. In the film, Elsa’s acceptance of herself is merely the beginning of her
journey to reach her utmost potential as an individual. So was Anna’s realization that she
does not need romantic love to be happy with herself/her life.

Reader-Response Perspective

This type of perspective focuses on the activity of reading a work of literature. Reader-response
critics turn away from the traditional idea that a literary work is an artifact that has meaning built
within it; they turn their attention instead to the responses of individual readers. By this shift of
perspective, a literary work is converted into an activity that goes on in a reader’s mind. It is
through this interaction that meaning is made. The features of the work itself— including
narrator, plot, characters, style, and structure—are less important than the interplay between a
reader’s experience and the text. Advocates of this perspective believe that literature has no
inherent or intrinsic meaning waiting to be discovered. Instead, meaning is constructed by
readers as they bring their own thoughts, moods, and experiences to whatever text they are
reading. In turn, what readers get out of a text depends upon their own expectations and ideas.
For example, if you read “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin and you have your own troubled
younger brother or sister, the story will have meaning for you that it wouldn’t have for, say, an
only child.
So far we’ve only discussed and practiced on this and we’re trying to master the reader-
response perspective.

The Social Power Perspective

Some critics believe that human history and institutions, even our ways of thinking, are
determined by the ways in which our societies are organized. Two primary factors shape our
schemes of organization: economic power and social class membership. First, the class to
which we belong determines our degree of economic, political, and social advantage, and so
social classes invariably find themselves in conflict with each other. Second, our membership in
a social class has a profound impact on our beliefs, values, perceptions, and our ways of
thinking and feeling. For these reasons, the social power perspective helps us understand how
people from different social classes understand the same circumstances in very different ways.
When we see members of different social classes thrown together in the same story, we are
likely to think in terms of power and advantage as we attempt to explain what happens and why.

The Formalist Perspective

The word “formal” has two related meanings, both of which apply within this perspective. The
first relates to its root word, “form,” a shape of structure that we can recognize and use to make
associations. The second relates to a set of conventions or accepted practices. Formal poetry,
for example, has meter, rhyme, stanza, and other predictable features that it shares with poems
of the same type. The formalist perspective, then, pays particular attention
to these issues of form and convention. Instead of looking at the world in which a poem exists,
for example, the formalist perspective says that a poem should be treated as an independent
and self-sufficient object. The methods used in this perspective are those of close reading: a
detailed and subtle analysis of the formal components that make up the literary work, such as
the meanings and interactions of words, figures of speech, and symbols.

The Historical Perspective

When applying this perspective you have to view a literary text within its historical context.
Specific historical information will be of key interest: about the time during which an author
wrote, about the time in which the text is set, about the ways in which people of the period saw
and thought about the world in which they lived. History, in this case, refers to the social,
political, economic, cultural, and/or intellectual climate of the time. For example, the literary
works of William Faulkner frequently reflect the history of the American South, the Civil War and
its aftermath, and the birth and death of a nation known as the Confederate States of America.

The Biographical Perspective

Because authors typically write about things they care deeply about and know well, the events
and circumstances of their lives are often reflected in the literary works they create. For this
reason, some readers use biographical information about an author to gain insight into that
author’s works. This lens, called biographical criticism, can be both helpful and dangerous. It
can provide insight into themes, historical references, social oppositions or movements, and the
creation of fictional characters. At the same time, it is not safe to assume that biographical
details from the author’s life can be transferred to a story or character that the author has
created. For example, Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos were both ambulance drivers
during World War I and both wrote novels about the war. Their experiences gave them firsthand
knowledge and created strong personal feelings about the war, but their stories are still works of
fiction. Some biographical details, in fact, may be completely irrelevant to the interpretation of
that writer’s work.

Here are some other lenses that can also be used as ways to consider texts. We won’t be using
them for our work with “Letter,” but you will find them useful in your future reading.

The Archetypal Perspective

In literary criticism, the word “archetype” signifies a recognizable pattern or a model. It can be
used to describe story designs, character types, or images that can be found in a wide variety of
works of literature. It can also be applied to myths, dreams, and social rituals. The archetypal
similarities among texts and behaviors are thought to reflect a set of universal, even primitive
ways of seeing the world. When we find them in literary works they evoke strong responses
from readers. Archetypal themes include the heroic journey and the search for a father figure.
Archetypal images include the opposition of paradise and Hades, the river as a sign of life and
movement, and mountains or other high places as sources of enlightenment. Characters can be
archetypal as well, like the rebel-hero, the scapegoat, the villain, and the goddess.

The Gender Perspective

Because gender is a way of viewing the world, people of different genders see things differently.
For example, a feminist critic might see cultural and economic disparities as the products of a
“patriarchal” society, shaped and dominated by men, who tend to decide things by various
means of competition. Because women are frequently brought up to be more cooperative than
competitive, they may find that such competition has hindered or prevented them from realizing
their full potential, from turning their creative possibilities into action. In addition, societies often
tend to see the male perspective as the default, that is, the one we choose automatically. As a
result, women are identified is as the “other”: the deviation or the contrasting type. When we use
this lens, we examine patterns of thought, behavior, value, and power in relations between the
sexes.

Deconstruction

Deconstruction is, at first, a difficult critical method to understand because it asks us to set aside
ways of thinking that are quite natural and comfortable. For example, we frequently see the
world as a set of opposing categories: male/female, rational/irrational, powerful/powerless. It
also looks at the ways in which we assign value to one thing over another, such as life over
death, presence over absence, and writing over speech. At its heart, deconstruction is a mode
of analysis that asks us to question the very assumptions that we bring to that analysis. Gender,
for example, is a “construct,” a set of beliefs and assumptions that we have built, or constructed,
over time and experience. But if we “de-construct” gender, looking at it while holding aside our
internalized beliefs and expectations, new understandings become possible. To practice this
perspective, then, we must constantly ask ourselves why we believe what we do about the
make-up of our world and the ways in which we know it. Then, we must try to explain that world
in the absence of our old beliefs.

Activity 3: Answer the following

questions based on the poem
“The Road Not Taken”

Questions

1. What is the poem about? How

do you understand it? Use lines
from the poem to support your
interpretation.
2. Why does the author find it hard
to choose one road than the
other?
3. “I shall be telling this with a sigh”,
what does it mean for the author
to sigh (magbuntong hininga)
about his decision?
4. Have you sighed about a
decision you made in life?