LITERATURE REVIEWER (3RD QUARTER)
WHY LITERATURE?
Mario Vargas Llosa (May 14, 2001)
1. Cultivates sensitivity and good manners
2. An entertainment, pleasure
3. Women outnumbered the men when it comes to reading
literature
 The author stated that work hours isn’t an
acceptable reason not to read, all of us have the
opportunity to do so but choose not to
4. It is primary and necessary to our minds
5. Do not focus too much on the branch or the leaf, lest you
forget that they are part of a tree, or too much on the tree,
lest you forget that it is part of a forest
 Discourages specialization for it focuses on deeper
or specific ideas which stops us from discovering
new things and socializing with people
6. Men and women of all nations and places are essentially
equal, and that only injustice sows among them
discrimination, fear, and exploitation.
 Despite our differences, literature helps us
understand and converse with each other
 Protection against the stupidity of prejudice,
racism, religious or political sectarianism, and
exclusivist nationalism
7. Learning what and how we are (our integrity and
imperfections)
8. Life is better understood and better lived; and that living
life more fully necessitates living it and sharing it with
others
 Literature’s goal is to enrich our life through our
imaginations
9. Culture
 The feeling of membership in human experiences
when reading literature written by authors from
past generations
10. They are human creations
11. It exists only when it is adopted by others and becomes a
part of social life —when it becomes, a shared experience
 Not only the authors give body, form or rhythm to
their works but also based it on their surroundings
and own emotions
12. Level of language (verbal limitation)
 Problems in communicating due to lack of
exposure to literary works
13. Ideas and imaginations
 Think, teach, learn, converse, fantasize, dream,
and feel
 Not only did literature taught us how to speak
correctly but also our actions for “Actions speaks
louder than words”
14. We value pleasure and experience pleasure more
15. Electronic screen can’t replace paper
 May limit our pleasure, dreams or imagnations
 It can’t give us the same sensation of intimacy, the
same mental concentration and spiritual isolation
16. It divests ourselves of the wrongs and the impositions of
this unjust life, a life that forces us always to be the same
person when we wish to be many different people
17. Fantasized life of the novel is better than the life that we
live while awake
18. Social and political consciousness
 Citizens will not be manipulated by those who
govern them for they are capable of knowing what
is true or not (not gullible)
19. Makes us more likely to be unhappy
20. We became civilized for we already discovered our own
traits
21. Unblinds us to the discovery of destructive and self-
destructive potentials
22. Prevents us from submitting ourselves to power/
pessimism that we cannot change human life
23. Overdevelopment of science
 Computer > books
 High standard of living
24. We must act, more precisely, we must read
 Our future depends on our vision and will
Summary of “Why Literature?”
© Marker, Bernadette
© Reign Alejandra Esteva
 LITERATURE REVIEWER (3RD QUARTER)
INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE Major Literary Forms
Characteristics of Literature  Prose
 Poetry
1. Universality
 Drama
2. Permanence
Major Classifications
3. Artistry
PROSE POETRY DRAMA
4. Suggestiveness Fiction Lyric Prose Drama
Non-fiction Narrative Verse Drama
5. Intellectual value
Creative non-
6. Spiritual value fiction
Universality
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF PHILIPPINE LITERATURE
 the quality of involving or being shared by all people or
things in the world or in a particular group. 1. Pre-Spanish (Pre-colonial) Literature
Permanence 2. Literature during Spanish Colonization
 Literature endures across time and draws out the time 3. Literature during the American Occupation
factor:
4. Literature during the Japanese Occupation
Timeliness – occurring at a particular time
5. Literature in the Contemporary Period
Timelessness – remaining invariable throughout time
Artistry
PRE-COLONIAL LITERATURE
 This is a quality which appeals to our sense of beauty
 spontaneous and instinctive
Suggestiveness
 expressed in its own dialect
 Associated with the emotion of a literary piece
 crude in ideology and phraseology
Intellectual Value
Common Literary Forms
 A literary work that stimulates thought
1. Folk epics, lyric poetry and folklore
Spiritual Value
 Ambahan – short lyric poems that employ
 Elevates the spirit by bringing out the moral values of a metaphorical language in order to comment on
person or situation human situations that are compared to
‘equivalent’ phenomena in nature. This has no
prescribed length; number of lines depend on the
complexity of the situation or moment described.
Hispanized version of this is called tanaga (with
four monoriming heptasyllabic lines).
 Others include myths, songs, proverbs and riddles
2. Ritual and dance as drama

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 LITERATURE REVIEWER (3RD QUARTER)
3. Songs
 Uyayi – lullaby for children
 Soliranin – travelers
 Kumintang – war
 Maluway – collective labor
 Kundiman – courtship, melancholy or love
 Pamamanhikan – song of the bridegroom to ask
for the bride’s hand in marriage
4. Bugtong or Riddles
5. Sawikain or Salawikain or Proverb
6. Epiko or epic – long, episodic chanted poems which
told a story, normally about a legendary hero and his
adventures, often contending with and also being
aided by, supernatural creatures and spirits
7. Prose
8. Myths
9. Legends
LITERATURE DURING SPANISH COLONIZATION
 centered on Christian faith
 imitative of Spanish themes, forms and traditions
 repetitious plots
 The rise of the printing press in the 19th century
enabled faster dissemination of works
Common Literary Forms
1. Pasyon: tells the passion and death of Christ; replaced
the epic poems of the pagan past. (Ang Passion ni
Jesuchristong Panginoon Natin (1704) by Gaspar
Aquino de Belen). This is later on referred to as the
senakulo.
2. Secular literature such as the following:
• Komedya – native poetic theater; their plots
were drawn from medieval Spanish ballads;
they are later known as moro-moro – poetic
theater about Christian and Moorish warriors.
• Awit and korido – Philippine metrical
romances. They are always chanted and not
simply read. The difference between the two
lies in its structure.
3. Prose
 An example is Modesto de Castro’s book of
manners, Pagsusulatan ng Dalawang Binibini
na si Urbana at si Feliza (1864).
 The Propaganda movement and the
Revolution are very important in relation to
the following works, among others:
1. Jose P. Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere, El
Filibusterismo, Mi Ultimo Adios
2. Emilio Jacinto’s Liwanag at Dilim
3. Poems of Andres Bonifacio, such as
Katapusang Hibik ng Filipinas
 Writings of ilustrados centered on a growing
sense of national identity
Popular literary forms:
1. Corrido – legendary religious narratives about the lives
of saints
2. Awit – chivalric poem sung during religious processions
3. Pasyon – narrative poem on the life and death of
Christ
4. Cenaculo – passion of Christ
5. Moro-moro or Comedia de Capa y Espada – battles
and proofs of faith between Muslims and Christians
6. Carillo – uses shadows as main spectacle
7. Tibag – dramatic reenactment of St. Helena’s search
for the Holy Cross.
8. Duplo – debate between bilyako and bilyaka
9. Karagatan – legend of a lady’s ring which fell at the
middle of the sea
10. Dramatic poems connected to mourning
11. Zarzuela – musical comedies or melodramas that deal
with elemental passions of human beings
Early essays written by Spanish friars:
1. Arte y reglas de las lengua tagala by Fr. Francisco
Blancas de San Jose – treatise on Tagalog language
2. Platicas Doctrinales By Fr. Modesto de Castro
Early Essay on Learning the Spanish Language:
1. Librong Pag-aaralan nang mga Tagalog ng Wicang
Castila by Tomas Pinpin
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 LITERATURE REVIEWER (3RD QUARTER)
LITERATURE DURING AMERICAN COLONIZATION
• Americans arrived in 1898.
• Spanish continued to dominate the elite.
• English became the official language of
communication.
• Thomasites became the Filipinos’ first teachers.
• Debate between Jose Garcia Villa (arts for arts sake)
and Salvador Lopez (literature with a social purpose)
Common Literary Forms
Some important writers and works:
• Lope K. Santos, “Ang Pangginggera” (1912) – a novel
in verse; about a young married woman drawn to
panggingge in order to overcome her grief caused by
her son’s death.
• Jose Corazon de Jesus and his poems – known as
Huseng Batute, wrote lyric poems in Filipino
• Jose Garcia Villa – wrote poems in English; advocated
‘art for art’s sake’.
• Severino Reyes wrote the sarsuela Walang Sugat;
sarsuela was a popular form of entertainment which
later led to the rise of vaudeville and movies.
JAPANESE OCCUPATION
 Proliferation of Tagalog works
 Campaign against western ideas
Common Literary Forms
Significant Events:
• 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.
• Famous writers who started their careers during the
WWII include Macario Pineda, Liwayway Arceo, NVM
Gonzales.
CONTEMPORARY PERIOD
 National literature and regional literature
 Writings in the diaspora, queer writings and theories
 Experimental forms
Popular literary forms:
1. Chic literature
2. Textula
3. Erasure poetry
4. Speculative fiction
5. Criticism
6. Graphic novels
Common Literary Forms
• Entry of New Criticism
• Resurgence of nationalist movement with students as
core during the Martial Law years.
• Philippine literature flourished; it continues to grow in
the various languages (including the vernacular)
especially with the appearance of new publications
after the Martial Law years.
• Filipino writers continue to write poetry and short
fiction with the varied themes (social commitment,
gender/ethnic related, personal or impersonal, among
others).
• The emergence of creative nonfiction have widened
the span of prose thereby is a positive sign to
encourage more writers to publish.
NATIONAL ARTISTS FOR LITERATURE IN THE 21ST CENTURY
What is the National Artist Award?
• It is the highest national recognition given to Filipinos
who have contributed significantly in the field of the
arts, namely Music, Dance, Theater, Visual Arts,
Literature, Film, Broadcast Arts, and
Architecture/Allied Arts.
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 LITERATURE REVIEWER (3RD QUARTER)
Which government agencies administer the NAA?
 Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP)
 National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA)
FAMOUS NATIONAL ARTIST AWARDEES
1. Cirilo Bautista (2014)
 Bautista was conferred the National Artist
Award in 2014 because he “greatly contributed
to the development of the country’s literary
arts and strengthened the Filipino’s sense of
nationalism.”
2. Lazaro Francisco (2009)
• Francisco was posthumously given the
National Artist Award in 2009.
• He developed the social realist tradition in
Philippine fiction; his eleven novels, now
acknowledged classics of Philippine literature,
embodies the author’s commitment to
nationalism.
• “Master of the Tagalog Novel”
3. Bienvenido Lumbera (2006)
 Lumbera pioneered the creative fusion of fine
arts and popular imagination.
 He historicized Philippine literature and
reinvented the society’s colonial point of
view.
 The interplaying issues of nation and class are
key points in all of his essays.
4. Virgilio Almario (2003)
 Virgilio S. Almario, also known as Rio Alma, is
a poet, literary historian and critic, who has
revived and reinvented traditional Filipino
poetic forms, even as he championed
modernist poetics.
5. Alejandro Roces (2003)
 Alejandro Roces, is a short story writer and
essayist, and considered as the country’s best
writer of comic short stories. He is known for
his widely anthologized My Brother’s Peculiar
Chicken.
 Ever the champion of Filipino culture, he
brought to public attention the aesthetics of
the country’s fiestas. He was instrumental in
popularizing several local fiestas, notably,
Moriones and Ati-atihan.
6. F. Sionil Jose (2001)
 Francisco Sionil Jose’s writings since the late
60s, when taken collectively, can best be
described as epic. Its sheer volume puts him on
the forefront of Philippine writing in English.
 But ultimately, it is the consistent espousal of
the aspirations of the Filipino–for national
sovereignty and social justice–that guarantees
the value of his oeuvre.
NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS OF THE 21ST CENTURY
What is the Nobel Prize?
 Alfred Nobel gave the largest share of his fortune to
Nobel Prizes.
 Nobel Prize in Literature should be awarded to “the
person who shall have produced in the field of
literature the most outstanding work in an ideal
direction.”
Nobel Prize Awards
 Nobel Prize in Physics
 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
 Nobel Prize in Literature
 Nobel Peace Prize
 Prize in Economic Sciences
1. SIR VIDIADHAR SURAJPRASAD NAIPAUL (2001)
 Nationality: British (Indian descent; born in
Trinidad and Tobago)
 Field: Fiction, non-fiction
 Won “for having united perceptive narrative and
incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to
see the presence of suppressed histories”.
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 LITERATURE REVIEWER (3RD QUARTER)

8. JEAN-MARIE GUSTAVE LE CLÉZIO (2008)

2. IMRE KERTÉSZ (2002)  Nationality: French (but grew up in Mauritius
 Nationality: Hungarian [Africa])
 Field: Fiction  Field: Prose (including translation works)
 Won “for writing that upholds the fragile  Won for being an “author of new departures,
experience of the individual against the barbaric poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of
arbitrariness of history”. a humanity beyond and below the reigning
civilization”.
3. JOHN M. COETZEE (2003)
9. HERTA MÜLLER (2009)
 Nationality: South African  Nationality: German
 Field: Fiction  Field: Prose
 Won the Nobel for being a novelist “who in  Won for being a writer “who, with the
innumerable guises portrays the surprising concentration of poetry and the frankness of
involvement of the outsider”. prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed”.

4. ELFRIEDE JELINEK (2004) 10. MARIO VARGAS LLOSA (2010)

 Nationality: Peruvian
 Nationality: Austrian  Field: Prose
 Field: Fiction, Drama  Won “for his cartography of structures of power
 Won “for her musical flow of voices and counter- and his trenchant images of the individual's
voices in novels and plays that with extraordinary resistance, revolt, and defeat”.
linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society's
clichés and their subjugating power”. 11. TOMAS TRANSTRÖMER (2011)
 Nationality: Swedish
5. HAROLD PINTER (2005)
 Field: Poetry
 Nationality: English
 Won “because, through his condensed,
 Field: Drama (also a screenwriter and actor) translucent images, he gives us fresh access to
 Won for being a playwright “who in his plays reality”.
uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and
forces entry into oppression's closed rooms”. 12. MO YAN (2012)
 Nationality: Chinese
6. ORHAN PAMUK (2006)
 Field: Fiction
 Nationality: Turkish
 Won for being a fictionist “who with hallucinatory
 Field: Fiction realism merges folk tales, history and the
 Won for being a novelist “who in the quest for the contemporary”.
melancholic soul of his native city has discovered
new symbols for the clash and interlacing of 13. ALICE MUNRO (2013)
cultures”.  Nationality: Canadian
 Field: Fiction
7. DORIS LESSING (2007)
 Won for being the “master of the contemporary
 Nationality: British
short story”.
 Field: Fiction, Drama, Non-fiction
 Won for being a novelist described as “that epicist
of the female experience, who with skepticism, fire
and visionary power has subjected a divided
civilization to scrutiny”.

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 LITERATURE REVIEWER (3RD QUARTER)
2. HISTORY AND MEMORY/POSTCOLONIAL VIEWPOINTS
14. PATRICK MODIANO (2014)
3. SOCIAL EVILS (war, terrorism, racism, religious
 Nationality: French
conflicts)
 Field: Fiction
 Won “for the art of memory with which he has 4. CATASTROPHE (natural and man-made)
evoked the most ungraspable human destinies
5. MERITS AND/OR PERILS OF TECHNOLOGY
and uncovered the life-world of the occupation”.
6. PERSONALIZATION OF NARRATIVES
15. SVETLANA ALEXIEVICH (2015)
 Nationality: Belarussian 7. FRACTURING (retelling from another angle/history)
 Field: Non-fiction (investigative journalism) 8. EFFECTS OF COMMERCIALISM
 Won “for her polyphonic writings, a monument to
suffering and courage in our time”. 9. DIASPORA AND MIGRATION

16. BOB DYLAN (2016)

 Nationality: American
 Field: Music (singer-composer)
 Won “for having created new poetic expressions
within the great American song tradition”.

17. KAZUO ISHIGURO (2017)

 Nationality: English (born in Japan, moved to
England)
 Field: Fiction
 Won for being a fictionist “who, in novels of great
emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath
our illusory sense of connection with the world”.

THEMES OF THE 21ST CENTURY LITERATURE

21st Century Society is Characterized by:
 High-tech knowledge age (death of print)
 Rapid population explosion and hunger
 Terrorism and extremism
 Climate change
 Mercurial politics, polarization and wars
 LGBT societies
 Commercialism
 Extreme individuality

21ST CENTURY THEMES

1. IDENTITY
 search for identity (including LGBT topics)
 life’s meaning/meaninglessness
 redefining one’s identity

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