The Difficulty of Defining Literature
Lesson adapted from the article “Why Literature has
Many Definitions”
“Why Literature has Many Definitions?”
The essay written by Sitwe Benson defines
literature and “brings out the inadequacies
attached to the definitions.”
The essay concludes that the presence of the
different genres of literature makes it difficult to
have one working definition attached to it.
Argument on the Definitions of Literature
1. Literature is a Latin word ‘litera’ which means
‘Writing’.
Argument: Saying that literature is any written
material is too limiting because literature may be
both oral and written forms. Twenty-first century
literature that considers the influence and
prominence of technology goes beyond the
meaning of text as more than just words on
page.
What are the flaws of these definitions of Literature?
1. Literature is literally “an acquaintance with
letters.”
2. As a common noun, the word „literature‟ can
refer to any form of writing, such as essays or
poetry. As a proper noun, literature refers to a
whole body of literally work, worldwide or
relating to a specific culture (Wikipedia, 2008).
3. Literature is a body of written works of a
culture, language, people or a period of time.
Something to ponder upon
 Can we consider a history book literature?
 How about a cookbook or the manual of your I-
phone?
 Can we consider a Mathematics book literature?
 Think of a Mathematics formula? Does it
express a language “worth calling as literature?”
 What about Youtube videos, blogs, and
podcasts?
Why are these definitions of literature narrow in
scope according to Benson?
1. Scylar (1998: 83) defines literature as “ any
writing on a subject: the body of published work
concerned with a particular subject.”
2. Pollanen (1997) says that “literature refers to
published writings in a particular style on a
particular subject.”
Can you use this working definition of
literature?
 Encarta (2009) defines literature as “the use of
well-chosen words to tell a story through
narrative, involving characters in conflict, or to
express an emotion or idea through artfully
arranged images.”
Why is this view about literature contradicts the
concept that literature is “anything written”?
 The purpose of literature is to entertain and
instruct (or to delight and enlighten) the reader
through the use of the imagination. Literature
can also shock, amaze, or provide readers withan
escape from reality for a while.
What are the qualities of “good literature” according to
this definition?
 Hancock (2006) defines literature as “being
written works of fiction and non fiction in which
compositional excellence and advancement in
the art of writing are higher priorities than are
considerations of profit or commercial appeal.”
 Davids (1983) says that “literature is a creative
writing of artistic value.”
Summing up
Why is Literature difficult to define?
1. The body of literature is encompassing and has
many forms.
2. Some definitions of literature do not consider the
“orature” component.
3. Other definitions limit themselves to literature
being written or published.
4. The purposes of literature may be too broad or
too specific.
5. The 21st century literature does not limit the
meaning of literature to anything printed on a
page.
Literary Standards
The 7 Literary Standards
The criteria to determine whether a text is literary or not
is developed by William J. Long in 1909 in his book
“English Literature: Its History and Its Significance for
the Life of the English-speaking World.”
The seven literary standards determine whether a piece
of work is considered literary, but there is no set of
guidelines or standards when it comes to determining if a
piece of literature is “good.”

The 7 Literary Standards
There are seven literary standards:
1. Universality is the appeal of a literary piece to
every reader regardless of “culture, race, gender,
and time.” According to Andrew Sedillo “ some
of the more common universal themes found in
literature include individual struggle towards a
personal goal, a person's struggle with humanity,
falling in love, life cycles, karma, coping with
tragedy, adolescence and discovering the world
around us.”
2. Artistry. A literary piece appeals to our “sense
of beauty.” A literature that is aesthetically
appealing “reveals hidden truth and beauty.”
3. Intellectual Value. It refers to the power of
literature to make us think critically as the
language of literature needs to be read between
and beyond the lines.
4. Suggestiveness refers to the emotional power of
literature “to define symbolism, nuances,
implied meanings, images and message, giving
and evoking visions above and beyond the
ordinary life and experiences.”
5. Spiritual Value refers to the power of literature
to inspire readers to elevate their spirit as they
read various genres of literature.
6. Permanence is “determined by a written work’s
ability to stand the test of time.” Noli Me
Tangere and El Filibusterismo were written long
time ago, but they remain relevant. That is the
test of permanence.
7. Style is the “author’s distinct way of expressing
his/her thoughts in his/her writings.” Readers
need to know the style of writers to interpret the
literary text based on how it is written by a
particular author.
Educating the Literary Taste by Paz Latorena
In her essay, “Educating the Literary Taste,” Paz
Latorena, identified the three literary values that should
serve as literary standards. These are:
1. Intellectual value
2. Emotional value
3. Ethical value
Literary Values
 Intellectual Value a literary composition makes
the reader think “to some purpose so that his
mental life is enriched and enlarged as a result of
reading.”
 Emotional Value refers to what appeals to the
emotions being the “distinguishing mark of any
literature.” Emotions may be pleasant or
unpleasant. Moods, feelings,, and attitudes may
be synonymous to emotions.
 Ethical Value refers to “the morality of the
work or the side effect of immorality in a work.”
Which is the correct concept of literature? Is it didactic
(for instruction) as Plato claims or is it aesthetic (for
pleasure) as Aristotle holds? Horace believes that
literature both teaches and delights.
Periods and Genres of Philippine Literature
What is Philippine Literature?
 It is the writings of Filipino authors within the
pre-historic, post-colonial and modern periods.
 Philippine literature refers to “all literature from
the Philippines, written in Spanish, English,
Tagalog, and a variety of other Philippine
languages.”
The Philippine Literary History
According to Lumbera and Lumbera, the different
literary
periods in Philippine literature are:
1. Oral lore from Precolonial Times (-1564)
2. Literature under Spanish Colonialism (1565-
1897)
3. Literature under US Colonialism (1898-1945)
4. Literature under the Republic (1946-1985)
5. Literature after EDSA (1986-1995)
Oral Lore from Precolonial Times (-1564)
 The simplest forms of oral literature were
poems, proverbs, and songs using the language
of daily life.
 Prose narratives were myths, hero tales, fables,
and legends used to “explain natural phenomena,
past events, contemporary beliefs, and entertain
the early Filipinos.”
 Folk epics were considered the most significant
pieces of oral literature.
 According to Lumbera & Lumbera, even before
the Spanish conquest, “Filipinos had a culture
that linked them with the Malays of Southeast
Asia.”
Literature under Spanish Colonialism (1565-1897)
 Ang Mahal na Passion ni Jesu Christong Mahal,
a Christian narrative poem “intended to replace
the epic poems of the pagan past.”
 Awit and korido were the narrative poems during
the Spanish colonialism. Awit was the poetic
genre of Francisco Baltazar (Balagtas) who
wrote “Florante at Laura.”
 Ninay, the first Tagalog novel authored by a
native Filipino, Pedro Paterno who also had a
collection of his Spanish poems with the title
 “Sampaguitas” that marked the beginning of
national consciousness among the Filipinos.
 Jose Rizal, our National hero was one of the
writers who raised the Filipino consciousness
with his notable works: the novels “Noli Me
Tangere and El Filibusterismo.
 The essay through the pages of La Solidaridad
became the “significant contribution of the
Spanish to the Philippine literary history.”
Literature under Spanish Colonialism (1565-1897)
According to Lumbera & Lumbera:
 Philippine Literature had become aware of its
distinct role as the “product of colonized people
struggling the rule of a foreign power.”
 The Spanish Colonialism brought the “self-
conscious literature that marks the beginning of
a truly Filipino literature.”
Literature under US Colonialism (1898-1945)
 Philippine Literature in English became the
direct result of American colonization.
 Poetry during this period showed “attempts at
unification.” Poetry in all languages flourished
during this period.
 Fiction writing was influenced by writings of
popular American fictionists. The first short
story in English, “Dead Stars” written by Paz
Marquez Benitez was published.
 Novels about Filipino identity and nationhood
were written by Maximo Kalaw (Filipino Rebel)
and Juan C. Laya (Native Soil).
Literature under US Colonialism (1898-1945)
 According to Lilia Quindoza-Santiago, the
weakness of this literary period is on the lack of
collaboration of writers of various languages “ to
come together, share experiences, and come to a
conclusion on the elements that constitute good
writing in the Philippines.”
 According to Lumbera & Lumbera, at the end of
US Colonialism, Philippine literature “had
attained its identity as national literature as a
result of the patriotic and resistance literature
during the early years of American rule.”
Literature under the Republic (1946-1985)
 When freedom was gained from religious
censorship, printing presses bloomed as
businesses.
 Literary forms during this period were essays,
novels, narrative poetry, allegorical drama, and
poetic verse.
 This period gave birth to free verse in poetry,
modern short story, and critical essay.
 The revival of Philippine theater and playwriting
raised political awareness of the masses.
 Championed by Jose Garcia Villa (Doveglion),
New Criticism as a critical theory became
influential. New Criticism assumes that a literary
work is “a verbal construct” and that a literary
piece could be studied autonomously, devoid of
its author.
Literature after EDSA (1986-1995)
Foci of writings during this period:
1. Writings about peasants, workers, and guerillas
2. Migrant workers both as “a subject matter and
authorial voice.”
3. Gay and lesbian as content
4. Writing from the regions (Introduction of
regional literature in schools)
After EDSA, the New Criticism had lost its prestige with
the presence of post-structuralism and post-modernism
critical discourses.
21st-century Literature
Genres of 21st Literature according to Katrina Melissa
Cruz
1. Creative nonfiction
2. Hyper poetry
3. Mobile phone text tula
4. Chick lit
5. Speculative fiction
6. Flash fiction
7. Blog
8. Graphic novels
Reading and Understanding Literature-Poetry PPT Notes
adapted from
• Reading poetry is both an attitude and a
technique.
• Curiosity is an attitude that will lead you to ask
questions about the topic of a certain poem.
• Asking questions can be one of the many
techniques of understanding poetry.
Given the nursery rhyme:
“Jack and Jill Jack and Jill went up the hill To fetch a
pail of water
Jack fell down and broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after.”
• What questions could you ask about this well-
known nursery rhyme? Are those questions
product of your curiosity? Are those questions
about the observable features of the poem
(rhyme and meter)? Or are your questions more
of the poem content?
False Assumptions when Reading Poetry
1. Something is wrong with the poem or with the
reader the first time you do not understand its
meaning on first reading.
2. Considering a poem as a code that has one and
only one meaning and that the code needs to be
cracked to decipher the meaning the poem tries
to impart.
3. The meaning of a poem depends on the one who
reads it or it is the reader who gives meaning to
the poem he/she reads.
Lyric 17 by Jose Garcia Villa
Read this poem:
First, a poem must be magical, Then musical as a sea-
gull.
It must be a brightness moving And hold secret a bird's
flowering. It must be slender as a bell,
And it must hold fire as well.
It must have the wisdom of bows And it must kneel like
a rose. It must be able to hear
The luminance of dove and deer.
It must be able to hide
What it seeks, like a bride.
And over all I would like to hover God, smiling from the
poem's cover.
Reflect on the following questions:
• Can you decipher the meaning of this poem on
first reading?
• Did you miss the point once you did not
understand what it means right away?
• Do you think this poem would mean the same
thing to different readers?
The best poetry
“has a magical quality—a sense of being more than the
sum of its parts—and even when it’s impossible to
articulate this sense, this something more, the power of
the poem is left undiminished.”
Does it mean even if the poem is not understood,
its power remains the same and is not reduced?
Reading a Poem Aloud
One way of understanding a poem is by reading it aloud.
Poetry.org has the following questions that may guide
you in reading a poem aloud:
1. Do you notice any special effects?
2. Do any of the words rhyme?
3. Is there a cluster of sounds that seem the same or
similar?
4. Is there a section of the poem that seems to have
a rhythm that’s distinct from the rest of the
poem?
If after reading, “you find your voice distracting”, ask
somebody to read the poem for you.
Poetry.org suggested some questions when reading
a poem for the first time
• Who is the speaker?
• What circumstances gave rise to the poem?
What situation is presented?
• Who or what is the audience?
• What is the tone?
• What form, if any, does the poem take?
• How is form related to content?
• Is sound an important, active element of the
poem?
• Does the poem spring from an identifiable
historical moment? Does the poem speak from a
specific culture?
• Does the poem have its own vernacular?
• Does the poem use imagery to achieve a
particular effect? What kind of figurative
language, if any, does the poem use? If the poem
is a question, what is the answer?
• If the poem is an answer, what is the question?
• What does the title suggest?
• Does the poem use unusual words or use words
in an unusual way?
Text and Context
Can we fully understand a poem out of context, or can
we make sense of a poem without considering any
source related to it? Can a poem really exist in a
vacuum?
The answers to the questions are captured here according
to poetry.org.
“Most poems are open to interpretation without the aid
of historical context or knowledge about the author’s
life. In fact, it’s often best to approach a poem without
the kind of preconceived ideas that can accompany this
kind of information. Other poems, however, overtly
political poems in particular, will benefit from some
knowledge of the poet’s life and times.”
http://bit.ly/38HCCCb
Pakpak Ni Jose Corazon de Jesus
Bigyan mo ng pakpak itong aking diwa at ako’y lilipad
hanggang kay Bathala. Maisipan ko’y mga malikmatang
sukat ikalugod ng tao sa lupa; malilikha ko rin ang mga
hiwaga, sa buhay ng tao’y magiging biyaya.
Ano ba ang sagwang sabay sa paghatak kundi siyang
pakpak ng bangka sa dagat? Ano ba ang kamay ng taong
namulat kundi siyang pakpak ng kanyang panghawak?
Ano ba ang dahon ng mga bulaklak
kung hindi pakpak din panakip ng dilag?
Text and Context in “Pakpak”
Essential Question:
Do you think the poem “Pakpak” written by Jose
Corazon de Jesus” can be understood apart from its
context?
“Oh, ibon ng diwa, ikaw ay lumipad, tingnan mo ang
langit, ang dilim, ang ulap, buksan mo ang pinto ng
natagong sinag, at iyong pawalan ang gintong liwanag
na sa aming laya ay magpapasikat
at sa inang bayan ay magpapaalpas.”
Based on the last stanza of the poem, can we assume that
the persona in the poem is advocating for something?
The Scope of Literature http://bit.ly/3bEvckM
In Module 1, we learned that not everything written no
matter how organized it is can be considered as
literature.
Informative writings such as technical, scholarly,
journalistic are “excluded from the rank of literature by
most, though not all, critics”.
Certain forms of writing are counted as literature:
1. Poems such as lyric, epic, dramatic, narrative,
and expository
2. World‟s great novels
3. Dramas
4. Essays
5. Personal documents such as autobiographies,
diaries, memoirs, and letters
6. Works of philosophy
7. Oratory
8. Short stories
Relation of form to content
 Style is how the author expresses himself/herself
in words through the use of language which
gives meaning to the literary work.
 “Great style depends on the perfect matching of
content and form, so that the literary expression
perfectly reflects the writer‟s intention; “poor
style” reveals the inability of a writer to match
the two—in other words, reveals his inability to
express himself.”
 The proponents of “art for art‟s sake” were
Oscar Wilde and Walter Peter. “Art for Art‟s”
sake as applied to literature means that being
one of the 7 arts, a literary text is “divorced from
any didactic, moral, political or utilitarian
functions.”
 Literature is an art. Writing is a skill or a craft.
 Can writing for literature be considered nature or
nurture?
Themes of literature
 The topic or subject matter of literature is as
varied as human experience itself.
 The themes of literature have “an infinite variety
and an abiding constancy taken from myth,
history or current occurrences.”
 The themes of literature are universal. The
“collective unconscious” of Carl Jung means
that human beings have similar experiences of
love, death, pains, and anger.
 Contemporary literature addresses human
experiences in a “more liberated and unfiltered
sense using an expressive culture.”
Analyzing Fiction and Nonfiction
Purposes for Analyzing Fiction
 We analyze fictional works for recurring themes
that reflect on the broader human experience.
Purposes for Analyzing Non-fiction
1. to discover underlying themes and perspectives
2. to realize how choices of.content and language
shape the reader's perception and encourage the
reader's acceptance.
Analyzing and Interpreting Fiction and Nonfiction
 Fiction is mostly about telling stories and
expressing feelings. The content of fiction may
take the form of the events in novels and short
stories.
 Analyzing both fiction and nonfiction texts
focuses on the analysis and application of the
notions of content, language, and structure for
each genre (novel and short story).
 With nonfiction texts, two readers may have the
same understanding of what the text says. With
fiction, the meaning is more personal to the
readers based on their perceptions, imagination,
and feelings.
 “In both cases, however, we demand that an
interpretation be based on evidence on the page.
And in both cases, part of understanding is
understanding one's own interests, values, and
desires and how they affect what one looks for
and how one thinks about what one finds.”
Key Elements for Analyzing Fiction
1. Plot is the main events of the story. To analyze
the plot, look at how the main events are
presented.
 How does the author share the story?
 In what order are the details presented?
 Does the author include foreshadowing,
suspense, or flashbacks?
 What conflicts do the characters endure?
 2. Characters are the people in the story.
 What are the characters like?
 How do they relate to each other?
 Do they change or stay the same?
 What traits do they have?
 What role do the minor characters play?
3. Setting is where and when the story takes place.
 Where does the story take place?
 What historical era or location?
 What important details does the author
share about the setting?
 What mood is introduced through the
setting?
4. Symbols are the objects that may carry other
meanings.
 What symbols or images are used in the
text?
 Is there an image that is repeated
throughout?
 What do the symbols and images
represent?
5. Point of view is the voice of the one narrating
the story.
 Who is the narrator?
 What do we learn through this point of
view?
 What do we not know? How are we
limited?
Analyzing a Play
 Analyzing a play simply means “questioning the
text in order to gain a better understanding of the
author's message, style, or even characters.”
 “To read and analyze a play, the first thing to do
is to identify the type of play. Is it a comedy or a
tragedy? Can you identify the sub-genre? The
type of play will give you insight as to what to
expect from the theme, characters, and plot.”
 Elements of analysis include theme, characters,
plot and stage directions.
 In analyzing a theme of a play, ask the following
questions: What is the theme? How
 is the theme implemented by the playwright, the
author of the play?
 In analyzing the character, „What does the
soliloquy or aside reveal about the speaker?' and
'How does it move the plot?'
Putting it all together:
• In analyzing a play, you can ask: “What does the
author say about that topic?” If the theme is
'revenge,‟ what is the playwright/author saying
about revenge? Does she/he believe that revenge
is sweet?
• Once the 'What?„ has been established, move on
to the 'How?' 'How does the playwright/author
use the characters, plot, and stage directions to
develop the theme?'

Analyzing Nonfiction
1. Purpose
 What is the purpose of the text?
 What kind of text is this?
 Is this appropriate for the writer‟s
purpose?
2. Organization
 What structure does the text broadly
follow?
 How is the text laid out/organized?
 Is the overall structural organization
appropriate to the text type?
3. Language
 What other interesting or unusual
language features do you see in the text?
 Does the text demonstrate a varied
vocabulary, or is it too dry and
repetitive?