Introduction to Literature

What is literature?
It is an enduring expression of a significant human experience in words well-chosen and
arranged.
Diagram on Literary Genres

Chapter 1: Introduction to the Study of Literature

The word literature is derived from the Latin term litera which means letter.
Literature deals with ideas, thoughts and emotions of man, literature can be said to be the story
of man. Mans loves, griefs, thoughts, dreams and aspirations coached in beautiful language is
literature.
Time Frames of Philippine Literature in English
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

The Period of Re-orientation:

Period of Imitation:
Period of Self-Discovery:
Japanese Period:
The Rebirth of Freedom:
Period of Activism:
Period of the New Society:
Period of the Third Republic:
Contemporary Period:

1898-1910
1910-1925
1925-1941
1941-1945
1946-1970
1970-1972
1972-1981
1981-1985
1986

Literary Compositions that Have Influenced the World

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

The Bible or the Sacred Writings

Koran
The Iliad and the Odyssey
The Mahabharata
Canterbury Tales
Uncle Toms Cabin
The Divine Comedy

8. El Cid Compeador
9. The Song of Roland
10. The Book of the Dead
11. The Book of the Days
12. One Thousand and One Nights or The
Arabian Nights

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13.
14. General Types of Literature
Literature can generally be divided into two types; prose and poetry.
Prose consists of those written within the common flow of conversation in sentences and
paragraphs.
Poetry refers to those expressions in verse, with measure and rhyme, line and stanza and has a
more melodious tone.
15. I. PROSE
a) Novels. A long narrative divided into chapters and events are taken from true-to-life stories.
Example: Without Seeing The Dawn by Stevan Javellana
b) Short story. This is a narrative involving one or more characters, one plot and one single
impression.
16. Example: The Laughter of My Father by Carlos Bulosan
c) Plays. This is presented on a stage, is divided into acts and each act has many scenes.
17. Example: Thirteen Plays by Wilfredo M. Guerrero
d) Legends. These are fictitious narratives, usually about origins.
18. Example: The Bikol Legend by Pio Duran
e) Fables. These are also fictitious and they deal with animals and inanimate things that speak and
act like people and their purpose is to enlighten the minds of children to events that can mold
their ways and attitudes.
19. Example: The Monkey and the Turtle
f) Anecdotes. These are merely products of the writers imagination and the main aim is to bring
out lessons to the reader.
20. Example: The Moth and the Lamp
g) Essay. This expresses the viewpoint or opinion of the writer about a particular problem or
event. The best example of this is the Editorial page of a newspaper.
h) Biography. This deals with the life of a person which may be about himself, his autobiography
or that of others.
21. Example: Cayetano Arellano by Socorro O. Albert
i) News. This is a report of everyday events in society, government, science and industry, and
accidents, happening nationally or not.
j) Oration. This is a formal treatment of a subject and is intended to be spoken in public. It
appeals to the intellect, to the will or to the emotions of the audience.
22. II. POETRY
A. Narrative Poetry. This form describes important events in life either real or imaginary.
1. Epic. This is an extended narrative about heroic exploits often under supernatural
control.
23.
Example: The Harvest Song of Aliguyon translated in English by Amador T.
Daguio
2. Metrical Tale. This is a narrative which is written in verse and can be classified either as
a ballad or a metrical romance.
24.
Examples: Bayani ng Bukid by Al Perez, Hero of the Fields by Al Perez
3. Ballads. Of the narrative poems, this is considered the shortest and simplest. It has a
simple structure and tells of a single incident. There are also variations of these: love
ballads, war ballads, and sea ballads, humorous, moral, and historical or mythical
ballads. In the early time, this referred to a song accompanying a dance.
B. Lyric Poetry. Originally, this refers to that kind of poetry meant to be sung to the
accompaniment of a lyre, but now, this applies to any type of poetry that expresses emotions and
feelings of the poet. They are usually short, simple and easy to understand.
1. Folksongs (Awiting Bayan). These are short poems intended to be sung. The common
theme is love, despair, grief, doubt, joy, hope and sorrow.

25.
Example: Chit-Chirit-Chit
2. Sonnets. This is a lyric poem of 14 lines dealing with an emotion, a feeling, or an idea.
These are two types: the Italian and the Shakespearean.
26.
Example: Santang Buds by Alfonso P. Santos
3. Elegy. This is a lyric poem which expresses feelings of grief and melancholy, and whose
theme is death.
27.
Example: The Lovers Death by Ricaredo Demetillo
4. Ode. This is a poem of a noble feeling, expressed with dignity, with no definite number
of syllables or definite number of lines in a stanza.
5. Psalms (Dalit). This is a song praising God or the Virgin Mary and containing a
philosophy of life.
6. Awit (Song). These have measures of twelve syllables (dodecasyllabic) and slowly sung
to the accompaniment of a guitar or banduria.
28.
Example: Florante At Laura by Franciso Balagtas
7. Corridos (Kuridos). These have measures of eight syllables (octosyllabic) and recited to
a martial beat.
29.
Example: Ibong Adarna
C. Dramatic Poetry
1. Comedy. The word comedy comes from the Greek term komos meaning festivity or
revelry. This form usually is light and written with the purpose of amusing, and usually
has a happy ending.
2. Melodrama. This is usually used in musical plays with the opera. Today, this is related
to tragedy just as the farce is to comedy. It arouses immediate and intense emotion and is
usually sad but there is a happy ending for the principal character.
3. Tragedy. This involves the hero struggling mightily against dynamic forces; he meets
death or ruin without success and satisfaction obtained by the protagonist in a comedy.
4. Farce. This is an exaggerated comedy. It seeks to arouse mirth by laughable lines;
situations are too ridiculous to be true; the characters seem to be caricatures and the
motives undignified and absurd.
5. Social Poems. This form is either purely comic or tragic and it pictures the life of today.
It may aim to bring about changes in the social conditions.
30. What is Poetry?
Poetry is a patterned form of verbal or written expression of ideas in imaginative and rhythmical
terms that often contain the elements of sense, sound, and structure.
It is considered as the oldest literary form.
It is the language of the imagination, almost entirely figurative and also a musical literary
language.
31.

Elements of Poetry

32. Sense of the Poem

A. Denotation vs. Connotation
Denotation is the dictionary meaning of the word while connotation is the suggested or
implied meaning/s associated with the word beyond its dictionary definition.
B. Imagery
This is the use of sensory details or descriptions that appeal to one or more of the five
senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. These are otherwise known as senses of
the mind that give mental images.
C. Figurative Language is a language used for descriptive effect in order to convey ideas or
emotions which are not literally true but express some truth beyond the literal level.
Figures of Speech are specific devices or a kind of figurative language that uses words,
phrases, and sentences in a non-literal definition but, rather, gives meanings in
abstractions.

33.
34. Types of Figures Of Speech
1. Allusion is a reference in a work of literature to a character, a place, or a situation from history,
literature, the Bible, mythology, scientific event, character, or place.
35.
Literature is my Achilles heel.
36.
Im not Lazarus, nor Prince Hamlet.
2. Antonomasia is a defining word or phrase that is substituted for a persons proper name.
37.
The Bard of Avon W. Shakespeare
3. Apostrophe is an address to an inanimate object, an idea, or a person who is absent/long dead.
38.
O my soul where were you in that deep and darkest night?
39.
- Leonides Benesa, Fragments: The Deserts of God
40.
Oh Death, be not proud.
4. Hyperbole is an intentional exaggeration used to express strong emotion, to make a point, or to
evoke humor.
41.
This heat, I mutter,
42.
melts the very bones.
43.
- Merlie M. Alunan, Young man in a Jeepney
44.
Im so hungry I could eat a horse.
45.
Its raining cats and dogs.
5. Irony is a contrast or discrepancy between appearance and reality.
46.
Neither is man aware of the unkind
47.
flight of time; for, though it gives him life,
48.
it is dragging him nearer his grave.
49.
- Juan de Atayde, The Man
6. Litotes is a deliberate sarcasm used to affirm by negating its opposite.
50.
Even in his fabulous dress,
51.
I find him not at all displeasing.
52.
- Anonymous
7. Metaphor implies comparison instead of a direct statement and that equates two seemingly
unlike things or ideas.
53.
You are the apple of my eye.
54.
The legal daylight held its star-shaped umbrella over me.
8. Metonymy is the use of one word to stand for a related term or replacement of word that relates
to the thing or person to be named for the name itself.
55.
To say that the crown will have an heir
56.
Is to assume a new life, a new beginning
57.
(the crown substitutes for the words majesty, king, queen, and the like)
58.
- Anonymous
59.
The eye of heaven.
9. Onomatopoeia is the use of a word/phrase that actually imitates or suggests the sound of what it
describes.
60.
And early evening, like croaking of the frogs, evoking memories lost.
61.
- Ralph Semino Galan, Cartanella
62.
10. Oxymoron is putting together two opposite ideas in one statement.
63.
It is futile to ask for guidance or direction in this unmappable landscape, the
history and scene of our unending sacrifice.
64.
-Francis M. Santos, Strum and Drug
65.
Cruel kindness
11. Anaphora is a repetition of a word or words at the beginning of two or more successive clauses
or verses.
66.
For everything there is a season, and
67.
a time for every matter under heaven:
68.
a time to be born, and a time to die;
69.
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up
70.
what is planted

12. Personification (also Anthromorphization) is giving human attributes/characteristics to

inanimate objects, an animal, force of nature, or an idea.
71.
Sunflowers pushed
72.
Out of the shadows
73.
Betrayed into tracking
74.
The sun.
75.
- Ramon T. Torrevillas, Assylum Flowers
13. Simile uses a word or phrase such as as or like to compare seemingly unlike things or ideas.
76.
His lips as soft as rose petals
77.
Softly dry my tear drenched face
78.
Melting the cold spell I cast upon myself.
79.
- Judi Anro Dizon, The One I Love
14. Synecdoche is the naming of parts to suggest the whole.
80.
Respect is due for snowy hair
81.
Life they lived is beyond compare
82.
(snowy hair pertains to elder people)
83.
-Anonymous
84.
The roof gives them shelter.
85.
The company needs five thousand hands.
86.

Sound of a Poem

A. Tone Color is achieved through repetition.

1. Repetition of Single Sounds
a) Alliteration is the repetition of similar and accented sounds at the
beginning of words.
87.
In a somer seson, what soft was the sonnet
88.
- Piers Plowman
b) Assonance is the repetition of similar accented vowel sounds.
89.
Thou still unravished bride of quietness,
90.
Thou foster child of silence and slow time.
91.
- Ode on a Grecian Urn
92.
In the first sweet sleep of night.
c) Consonance is the repetition of similar consonant sound typically within
or at the end of words.
93.
Out of this house said rider to reader
Yours never will said farer to fearer
Theyre looking for you said hearer to horror
As he left them there, as he left them there.
- O Where Are You Going?
d) Rhyme is the repetition of the same stressed vowel sounds and any
succeeding sounds in two or more words.
94.
I think that I shall never see
95.
A poem as lovely as a tree.
96.
- Trees
97.

Types of Rhyme
Internal Rhyme rhyme within the line.
Terminal Rhyme rhyme found at the end of the line.

98.
Rhyme Scheme is the pattern of rhyme form that ends a stanza or poem. The rhyme scheme
is designated by the assignment of a different letter of the alphabet to each new rhyme.
99.
Helen, the beauty is to me
a
100.
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
b
101.
That gently, oer a perfumed sea,
a
102.
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
b

103.

To his own native shore

104.

b
- To Helen

2. Repetition of Words
105.
My dreams are dreams of thee, fair maid.
106.
- Rural Maid
3. Repetition of Sentences or Phrases
107.
I dream that one day our voices will be heard
108.
I dream that one day our hope becomes worth
109.
- Paraiso
110.
B. Rhythm is the pattern of beats created by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables,
which gives musical quality and adds emphasis to certain words and thus helps convey the
meaning of the poem.
The effect is derived from the sounds employed, the varying pitches, stresses,
volumes, and durations.
111.
C. Meter is a regular recurrence of stressed and unstressed syllables that give a line of poetry a
more or less predictable rhythm.
Its unit of measure is termed as foot which usually contains an accented
syllable and one or two unaccented syllables.
Foot is the basic unit of meter consisting of a group of two or more syllables.
112.
113. Helen, the beauty is to me

[Helen,] [the beau][ty is] [to me]

Like those Nicean barks of yore.

114.

[Like those] [Nice][an barks] [of yore.]

115.
116.
117.
118.
119.

Table of Metrical Feet

121.

Table of Line Lengths

120.

122.
Scansion is the process of determining the prevailing foot in a line of poetry, identifying the
types and sequence of different feet.
123.

Structure of the Poem

Is the manner in which words are arranged and parts are organized to form a whole poem.
Is concerned with words and their order in a line of the poem, with ellipsis (omission of words),
with punctuation marks, and with the different patterns of a stanza.

124.
125.

Definition:

Narrative Poetry - includes poems that tell stories.

Ballads - are short narrative poems intended to be sung. It is brief and told in great rapidity. It
tells a simple, serious story which usually has a tragic ending.
126.
Ex:
Lord Randal
Metrical Tale - deals with any emotion or phase of life and its story is told in a simple,
straightforward, and realistic manner.
Epic - is a long narrative poem divided into distinct parts and episodes bound together by a
common relationship to some great hero, action, and time.
127.
Ex:
The Iliad, The Odyssey
128.
The Aeneid, Beowulf
Metrical Romance - is descriptive or expository in nature where the poet is concerned mainly
with presenting personal thoughts and feelings. It derives its name from the musical instrument,
the lyre, and is primarily intended to be sung.
Song - is a poem that is easily set to music
Sonnet - is a lyric poem distinguished by its exact form fourteen iambic pentameter lines.
129.
Petrarchan sonnet (Italian) abba-abba-cdecde
130.
Shakespearean sonnet
abab-cdcd-cdecde

 Elegy- is generally a poem of subjective and meditative nature. Strictly, it is a poem that can be
distinguished by its subject death. It contains the authors personal grief for a loved one or
lamentation for one who is dead.
Ode - always deals with a serious theme such as immortality. It expresses enthusiasm, lofty
praise of some person or thing. The author is in an exalted mood and he feels deeply what he
says.
Lullabies - is a soothing refrain specifically a song to quiet down children or to lull them to
sleep.
Dramatic Poetry - portrays life and character through action in powerful, emotion-packed lines
such as those in Shakespeares plays.
Dramatic Monologue - is a literary work in which a character reveals himself in a dramatic
sketch performed by himself alone.
Soliloquy - is the act of talking to oneself.
Character Sketch - is a poem which dramatizes the attributes or features that make up and
distinguish an individual.
Prose Poetry - is narrative in poetic form. It is a long rambling story in verse which was greatly
known when chivalry, romantic love, and religion predominated. Wonderful and impossible
adventures are set forth.
131.
The usual themes in poetry are love, death, brotherhood, inhumanity, loneliness, and joy.
132.
133.

Poetry can do the following:

Move an individual to tears or laughter.

Stir the insights of the readers.
Stimulate the imagination of the reader.
Soothe the mind of a reader.
Lift the burden of a heavy heart.
Ease and relax tension in a troubled world.