21st CENTURY LITERATURE FROM THE PHILIPPINES AND THE WORLD
Division of Literature and Literary Approaches
Division of Literature
A. PROSE: It is a form of language that has
no formal metrical structure. It applies a
natural flow of speech.
 The word prose is derived from the Latin
“prosa” which means straightforward.
Some examples of Prose are:
 newspaper article
 fictional novel
 magazine interview
 biography
 short stories
1. Fiction: is the form of any narrative or
informative work that deals, in part or in
whole, with information or events that are
not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is,
invented by the author. It consists of those
written within the common flow of
conversation in sentences and paragraphs.
i. Legend: story about the origin of a
place or a thing.
ii. Parable: a simple story used to illustrate
a moral or spiritual lesson, as told by
Jesus in the Bible.
iii. Fable: A short story that often uses
talking animals as the main characters
and teaches an explicit moral or lesson.
iv. Short Story: a narrative with an
organized plot usually with a maximum
of 1,000 to 7,500-word count.
v. Novelette: a narrative with an organized
plot usually with a maximum of 7,500 to
9,000-word count.
vi. Novella: a narrative with an organized
plot usually with a maximum of 10,000
to 40,000-word count.
vii. Novel: a long narrative with an
organized plot usually with a word count
of 40,000 and above (*min. of 50,000).
Most novels ranges from 60,000 to
100,000 words.
2. Non-fiction: deals exclusively with factual
(or, at least, assumed factual) events,
descriptions, observations, etc. (e.g.,
biographies, histories).
i. Biography: life story of a person written
by another person.
ii. History: consists of true accounts of
eras and past events.
iii. Anecdotes: a brief, revealing account of
an individual person or an incident.
iv. Essay: expresses the viewpoint or
opinion of the writer about a particular
problem or event.
v. Autobiography: life story of a person
written by himself.
vi. News: a report of everyday events in
society, government, science and
industry, and accidents, happening
nationally or not
vii. Diary/Journal: a diary is the record of
important things while journal is a daily
record of personal events.
B. POETRY: from the Greek poetes means ii. Comedy: The word comedy comes from
“doer” or “creator,” is a catch-all term that the Greek term “komos” meaning
refers to those expressions in verse, with festivity or revelry. This form usually is
measure and rhyme, line and stanza and light and written with the purpose of
has a more melodious tone amusing, and usually has a happy
ending.
Some examples of Poetry are:
iii. Melodrama: The depiction of simple
 haiku poems
classic characters like heroes and
 epic poems
villains dealing with sensational,
 narrative poems
romantic, and often perilous situations.
 cinquains iv. Social Play: This form is either purely
 sonnets comic or tragic and it pictures the life of
 ballads today. It may aim to bring about
1. Narrative: describes important events in changes in the social conditions.
life either real or imaginary. v. Farce: An “over the top” form of
i. Epic: a narrative poem about purposely over-acted and exaggerated
supernatural powers possessed by comedy.
heroes and heroines
Literary Approaches
ii. Ballad: a narrative poem with harmony
A literary text may be critiqued using different
and rhythm (usually love or adventure)
approaches.
iii. Metrical Tale: this is a narrative which
is written in verse and can be classified These approaches may correspond to
either as a ballad or a metrical romance. different-even conflicting---schools of thought
iv. Metrical Romance: a narrative poem pertaining to how literature as a whole should
dealing with the emotions or phase of be viewed and treated.
life and the story is told in a simple, FORMALISM
straightforward and realistic manner  Operates on the idea that any literary text
2. Lyric: a genre of poetry that expresses is autonomous.
personal and emotional feelings which is  Rejects the perceived connection between
meant to be sung. the text and the author.
i. Song: a lyric poem intended to be sung, Schools of Formalism
with melodious harmony and rhythm  Russian Formalism
ii. Elegy: a lament for the dead and it
o Victor Shklovsky –
expresses feelings of grief and
Defamiliarization
melancholy
o Poetry is evaluated through rhyme,
iii. Idyll: a narrative poem about rustic life
meter, and rhythm
iv. Ode: a lyrical poem praising or glorifying
o Narrative is analyzed through its plot
an event or individual, describing nature
intellectually as well as emotionally. and Defamiliarization.
v. Sonnet: a lyric poem consisting of 14  New Criticism
iambic pentameter lines o Champions what is called “close
3. Dramatic: these are types of poetry that reading”; leaves out authorial and
are meant to be performed on stage. other external influences.
i. Tragedy: The portrayal of darker o Readers are prone to 2 kinds of
subjects like death, disaster, betrayal, fallacy when he does not focus on
and human suffering. the form:
 Intentional fallacy
  Affective fallacy
A literary text should be seen as a complete,
beautiful, and literary entity by itself.
MARXISM
 A body of doctrine developed by Karl
Marx together with Friedrich Engels:
history has been a history of class
struggles.
 Human nature is inseparably connected
to the class where one belongs.
 This literary approach involves how
elements of the class struggle are
reflected in the text.
STRUCTURALISM
 A critical approach that related the text to
the larger, wider structure through inter-
textual connections or repetitive patterns.
 A text is not autonomous but should be
analyzed within wider, social, and cultural
contexts.
 Marxism, Psychoanalysis
 Binary Oppositions
POSTSTRUCTIALISM: DECONSTRUCTION
 Not just a literary approach but a
philosophy that emerged due to the
limitations posted by structuralist criticism
 Deconstruction or Deconstructionism
(Jaques Derrida)
Deconstruction
 Rejection of the binary opposition
 Exposing the problematic relations
between the elements that make up the
binary hierarchy.
 Difference: refers to the instability and
complexity of meaning, indeed of all
knowledge.
 A book, a movie, or any other media text
could be deconstructed by addressing the
gaps.
 Deconstruction shows that meaning is
indefinites and undecidable.
NEW HISTORICISM
 A new literary approach (gained popularity
only since the 1980s)
 Does not view history in the same way
that it has been viewed traditionally.
 History is nothing but a narrative text that
is contaminated by people’s personal
biases, assumptions, etc., under the
influence of culture in which they belong
 “There can be no way of knowing the
‘absolute truth ’insofar as history is
concerned.”
 Michel Foucault: historical period is
characterized by “regimes of truths” which
“decide” on which discourse to be
considered legitimate or illegitimate and
subversive.
 “Human nature is linked to culture.”
 To employ the tools of New Historicism,
the critic investigates, among the other
things, the life of author; social values as
reflected in the text; and the text’s
historical situatedness.
FEMINISM
 Literature is largely male-dominated
domain. Female writers are lamentably
outnumbered by the males.
 A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
(Essay)
 Simone de Beauvoir, Rosa Luxemburg,
and Hannah Arendt
 Feminist approach to literary criticism
reads a text within a social context.
 Analyzes textual representation such as
stereotyping and objectification of
womanhood.
 By revealing gender stereotypes and
derogatory language used to objectify and
disempower women, we can critique the
patriarchal system that begins from the
family and is perpetuated in every aspect
of the society.