What is Literature?

Literature, most generically, is any body of written works. More restrictively, literature refers
to writing considered to be an art form or any single writing deemed to have artistic or intellectual
value, often due to deploying language in ways that differ from ordinary usage.
Its Latin root literatura/litteratura (derived itself from littera: letter or handwriting) was used to refer to
all written accounts. The concept has changed meaning over time to include texts that are spoken or
sung (oral literature), and non-written verbal art forms. Developments in print technology have
allowed an ever-growing distribution and proliferation of written works, culminating in electronic
literature.
Literature is classified according to whether it is fiction or non-fiction, and whether it is poetry or prose.
It can be further distinguished according to major forms such as the novel, short story or drama; and
works are often categorized according to historical periods or their adherence to
certain aesthetic features or expectations (genre).
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, while poetry refers to
those expressions in verse, with measure and rhyme, line and stanza and has a more melodious tone.
I. PROSE
There are many types of prose. These include novels or biographies, short stories, contemporary
dramas, legends, fables, essays, anecdotes, news and speeches.
a. Novel. This is a long narrative divided into chapters. The events are taken from true-to-life
stories…and span a long period of time. There are many characters involved. Example: WITHOUT SEEING
THE DAWN by Steven Javallena.
b. Short Story. This is a narrative involving one or more characters, one plot and one single impression.
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. Example:
THIRTEEN PLAYS by Wilfredo M. Guerrero.
d. Legends. These are fictitious narrative, usually about origins. Example: THE BIKOL LEGEND by Pio
Duran.
e. Fables. These are also fictitious and they deal with animals and inanimate thins who speak and act
like people and their purpose is to enlighten the minds of children to events that can mold their ways
and attitudes. Example: THE MONKEY AND THE TURTLE.
f. Anecdotes. These are merely products of the writer’s imagination and the main aim is to bring out
lessons to the reader. It can be stories about animals or children. 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. 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.

II. POETRY

There are three types of poetry and these are the following:

A. Narrative Poetry. This form describes important events in life either real or imaginary.

The different varieties are:

1. Epic. This is an extended narrative about heroic exploits often under supernatural control. 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. Examples: BAYANI NG BUKID 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. 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. 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. Example: THE LOVER’S 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. Example: FLORANTE AT LAURA by Franciso Balagtas

7. Corridos (Kuridos). These have measures of eight syllables (octosyllabic) and recited to a martial beat.
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 he social conditions.

Genre of literature
Genres of literature are important to learn about. The two main categories
separating the different genres of literature are fiction and nonfiction. There are
several genres of literature that fall under the nonfiction category. Nonfiction sits in
direct opposition to fiction. Examples from both the fiction and nonfiction genres of
literature are explained in detail below. This detailed genres of literature list is a great
resource to share with any scholars.

Types of Nonfiction:

Narrative Nonfiction is information based on fact that is presented in a format which

tells a story.

Essays are a short literary composition that reflects the author’s outlook or point. A
short literary composition on a particular theme or subject, usually in prose and
generally analytic, speculative, or interpretative.

A Biography is a written account of another person’s life.

An Autobiography gives the history of a person’s life, written or told by that person.
Often written in Narrative form of their person’s life.
Speech is the faculty or power of speaking; oral communication; ability to express
one’s thoughts and emotions by speech, sounds, and gesture. Generally delivered in
the form of an address or discourse.

Finally there is the general genre of Nonfiction. This is Informational text dealing
with an actual, real-life subject. This genre of literature offers opinions or conjectures
on facts and reality. This includes biographies, history, essays, speech, and narrative
non fiction. Nonfiction opposes fiction and is distinguished from those fiction genres
of literature like poetry and drama which is the next section we will discuss.

Genres of Fiction:

Drama is the genre of literature that’s subject for compositions is dramatic art in the
way it is represented. This genre is stories composed in verse or prose, usually for
theatrical performance, where conflicts and emotion are expressed through dialogue
and action.

Poetry is verse and rhythmic writing with imagery that evokes an emotional response
from the reader. The art of poetry is rhythmical in composition, written or spoken.
This genre of literature is for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, or elevated
thoughts.

Fantasy is the forming of mental images with strange or other worldly settings or
characters; fiction which invites suspension of reality.

Humor is the faculty of perceiving what is amusing or comical. Fiction full of fun,
fancy, and excitement which meant to entertain. This genre of literature can actually
be seen and contained within all genres.

A Fable is a story about supernatural or extraordinary people Usually in the form of

narration that demonstrates a useful truth. In Fables, animals often speak as humans
that are legendary and supernatural tales.

Fairy Tales or wonder tales are a kind of folktale or fable. Sometimes the stories are
about fairies or other magical creatures, usually for children.
Science Fiction is a story based on impact of potential science, either actual or
imagined. Science fiction is one of the genres of literature that is set in the future or on
other planets.

Short Story is fiction of such briefness that is not able to support any subplots.

Realistic Fiction is a story that can actually happen and is true to real life.

Folklore are songs, stories, myths, and proverbs of a person of “folk” that was handed
down by word of mouth. Folklore is a genre of literature that is widely held, but false
and based on unsubstantiated beliefs.

Historical Fiction is a story with fictional characters and events in a historical setting.

Horror is an overwhelming and painful feeling caused by literature that is frightfully

shocking, terrifying, or revolting. Fiction in which events evoke a feeling of dread in
both the characters and the reader.

A Tall Tale is a humorous story with blatant exaggerations, swaggering heroes who
do the impossible with an here of nonchalance.

Legend is a story that sometimes of a national or folk hero. Legend is based on fact
but also includes imaginative material.

Mystery is a genre of fiction that deals with the solution of a crime or the unraveling
of secrets. Anything that is kept secret or remains unexplained or unknown.

Mythology is a type of legend or traditional narrative. This is often based in part on

historical events, that reveals human behavior and natural phenomena by its
symbolism; often pertaining to the actions of the gods. A body of myths, as that of a
particular people or that relating to a particular person.

Fiction in Verse is full-length novels with plot, subplots, themes, with major and
minor characters. Fiction of verse is one of the genres of literature in which the
narrative is usually presented in blank verse form.
The genre of Fiction can be defined as narrative literary works whose content is
produced by the imagination and is not necessarily based on fact. In fiction something
is feigned, invented, or imagined; a made-up story.

Literary elements
A literary element, or narrative element, or element of literature is a constituent of all
works of narrative fiction—a necessary feature of verbal storytelling that can be found in any written
or spoken narrative. This distinguishes them from literary techniques, or non-universal features of
literature that accompany the construction of a particular work rather than forming the essential
characteristics of all narrative. For example, plot, theme, character and tone are literary elements,
whereas figurative language, irony, or foreshadowing would be considered literary techniques.
Literary elements aid in the discussion of and understanding of a work of literature as basic
categories of critical analysis; literary elements could be said to be produced by the readers of a
work just as much as they are produced by its author. For the most part, they are popular concepts
that are not limited to any particular branch of literary criticism, although they are most closely
associated with the formalist method of professional literary criticism. There is no official definition or
fixed list of terms of literary elements; however, they are a common feature of literary education at
the primary and secondary level, and a set of terms similar to the one below often appears in
institutional student evaluation. For instance, the New York State Comprehensive English Regents
Exam requires that students use and discuss literary elements relating to specific works in each of
the three essays.

Literary devices
Literary Devices have two aspects. They can be treated as
either Literary Elements or Literary Techniques. It will be convenient to define
them separately.

Literary Elements have an inherent existence in literary piece and are

extensively employed by writers to develop a literary piece
e.g. plot, setting, narrative structure, characters, mood, theme, moral etc.
Writers simply cannot create his desired work without including Literary
Elements in a thoroughly professional manner.

Literary Techniques, on the contrary, are structures usually a word s or

phrases in literary texts that writers employ to achieve not merely artistic ends
but also readers a greater understanding and appreciation of their literary
works. Examples are: metaphor, simile, alliteration, hyperbole, allegory etc.
In contrast to Literary Elements, Literary Techniques are not unavoidable
aspect of literary works.
Figures of speech
A figure of speech or rhetorical figure is figurative language in the form of a
single word or phrase. It can be a special repetition, arrangement or omission of words with literal
meaning, or a phrase with a specialized meaning not based on the literal meaning of the
words. Figures of speech often provide emphasis, freshness of expression, or clarity. However,
clarity may also suffer from their use, as figures of speech can introduce an ambiguity between literal
and figurative interpretation.
Parts of speech
In traditional grammar, a part of speech (abbreviated form: PoS or POS) is a category of
words (or, more generally, of lexical items) which have similar grammatical properties. Words that
are assigned to the same part of speech generally display similar behavior in terms of syntax—they
play similar roles within the grammatical structure of sentences—and sometimes in terms
of morphology, in that they undergo inflection for similar properties.
Commonly listed English parts of speech
are noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, interjection, and
sometimes numeral, article, or determiner. Other Indo-European languages also have essentially all
these word classes; one exception to this generalization is that most Slavic languages as well
as Latin and Sanskrit do not have articles. Beyond the Indo-European family, such other European
languages as Hungarian and Finnish, both of which belong to the Uralic family, completely lack
prepositions or have only very few of them; rather, they have postpositions.
Other terms than part of speech—particularly in modern linguistic classifications, which often make
more precise distinctions than the traditional scheme does—include word class, lexical class,
and lexical category. Some authors restrict the term lexical category to refer only to a particular
type of syntactic category; for them the term excludes those parts of speech that are considered to
be functional, such as pronouns. The term form class is also used, although this has various
conflicting definitions. Word classes may be classified as open or closed: open classes (like nouns,
verbs and adjectives) acquire new members constantly, while closed classes (such as pronouns and
conjunctions) acquire new members infrequently, if at all.
Almost all languages have the word classes noun and verb, but beyond these two there are
significant variations among different languages. For example,Japanese has as many as three
classes of adjectives, where English has one (not to be confused with the seven types of English
adjectives, or the fact that English adjectives can modify both nouns and
pronouns);Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese have a class of nominal classifiers;
andMany languages do not distinguish between adjectives and adverbs, or between adjectives and
verbs (see stative verb).Because of such variation in the number of categories and their identifying
properties, analysis of parts of speech must be done for each individual language. Nevertheless, the
labels for each category are assigned on the basis of universal criteria.
Basic rule of subject verb agreement
Rule 1. A subject will come before a phrase beginning with of. This is a key
rule for understanding subjects. The word of is the culprit in many, perhaps
most, subject-verb mistakes.

Hasty writers, speakers, readers, and listeners might miss the all-too-common
mistake in the following sentence:

Incorrect: A bouquet of yellow roses lend color and fragrance to the

room.
 Correct: A bouquet of yellow roses lends . . . (bouquet lends, not roses
lend)

Rule 2. Two singular subjects connected by or,

either/or, or neither/nor require a singular verb.

Examples:
My aunt or my uncle is arriving by train today.
Neither Juan nor Carmen is available.
Either Kiana or Casey is helping today with stage decorations.

Rule 3. The verb in an or, either/or, or neither/nor sentence agrees with the
noun or pronoun closest to it.

Examples:
Neither the plates nor the serving bowl goes on that shelf.
Neither the serving bowl nor the plates go on that shelf.

This rule can lead to bumps in the road. For example, if I is one of two (or
more) subjects, it could lead to this odd sentence:

Awkward: Neither she, my friends, nor I am going to the festival.

If possible, it's best to reword such grammatically correct but awkward

sentences.

Better:
Neither she, I, nor my friends are going to the festival.
OR
She, my friends, and I are not going to the festival.

Rule 4. As a general rule, use a plural verb with two or more subjects when
they are connected by and.
 Example: A car and a bike are my means of transportation.

But note these exceptions:

Exceptions:
Breaking and entering is against the law.
The bed and breakfast was charming.

In those sentences, breaking and entering and bed and breakfast are
compound nouns.

Rule 5a. Sometimes the subject is separated from the verb by such words
as along with, as well as, besides, not, etc. These words and phrases are not
part of the subject. Ignore them and use a singular verb when the subject is
singular.

Examples:
The politician, along with the newsmen, is expected shortly.
Excitement, as well as nervousness, is the cause of her shaking.

Rule 5b. Parentheses are not part of the subject.

Example: Joe (and his trusty mutt) was always welcome.

If this seems awkward, try rewriting the sentence.

Rule 6. In sentences beginning with here or there, the true subject follows the
verb.

Examples:
There are four hurdles to jump.
There is a high hurdle to jump.
Here are the keys.
Rule 7. Use a singular verb with distances, periods of time, sums of money,
etc., when considered as a unit.

Examples:
Three miles is too far to walk.
Five years is the maximum sentence for that offense.
Ten dollars is a high price to pay.
BUT
Ten dollars (i.e., dollar bills) were scattered on the floor.

Rule 8. With words that indicate portions—e.g., a lot, a majority, some, all—
Rule 1 given earlier in this section is reversed, and we are guided by the noun
after of. If the noun after of is singular, use a singular verb. If it is plural, use a
plural verb.

Examples:
A lot of the pie has disappeared.
A lot of the pies have disappeared.
A third of the city is unemployed.
A third of the people are unemployed.
All of the pie is gone.
All of the pies are gone.
Some of the pie is missing.
Some of the pies are missing.

Rule 9. With collective nouns such

as group, jury, family, audience, population, the verb might be singular or
plural, depending on the writer's intent.

Examples:
All of my family has arrived OR have arrived.
Most of the jury is here OR are here.
A third of the population was not in favor OR were not in favor of the bill.
Rule 10. The word were replaces was in sentences that express a wish or are
contrary to fact:

Example: If Joe were here, you'd be sorry.

Shouldn't Joe be followed by was, not were, given that Joe is singular? But
Joe isn't actually here, so we say were, not was. The sentence demonstrates
the subjunctive mood, which is used to express things that are hypothetical,
wishful, imaginary, or factually contradictory. The subjunctive mood pairs
singular subjects with what we usually think of as plural verbs.

Examples:
I wish it were Friday.
She requested that he raise his hand.

In the first example, a wishful statement, not a fact, is being expressed;

therefore, were, which we usually think of as a plural verb, is used with the
singular it. (Technically, it is the singular subject of the object clause in the
subjunctive mood: it were Friday.)
Normally, he raise would sound terrible to us. However, in the second
example, where a request is being expressed, the subjunctive mood is
correct.
Referrence
What is Literature?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literature
Types of Literature
http://bihirangpanitikangpilipino.blogspot.com/2013/07/types-of-literature.html
Genre of Literature
http://genresofliterature.com/
Literary Elemets
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_element
Literary Devices
https://literarydevices.net/literary-devices/
Figure Of Speech
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_of_speech

Parts of Speech
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Part_of_speech
Basic Rule of Subject Verb Agreement
https://www.grammarbook.com/grammar/subjectVerbAgree.asp