COURSE MATERIAL

21st Century Literature

from the Philippines and
the World
 I. COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course aims to engage students in appreciation and critical study of 21st Century Literature from the
Philippines and the World encompassing their various dimensions, genres, elements, structures, contexts,
and traditions.

II. CONTENT STANDARDS

FIRST QUARTER

 The learner will be able to understand and appreciate the elements and contexts of 21 st century
Philippine literature from the regions.
SECOND QUARTER

 The learner will be able to understand and appreciate literary texts in various genres across
national literature and cultures.

III. PERFORMANCE STANDARDS

The learner will be able to demonstrate understanding and appreciation of 21st Century Philippine
literature from the regions through:
A. a written close analysis and critical interpretation of a literary text in terms of form and theme,
with a description of its context derived from research; and
B. an adaptation of a text into other creative forms using multimedia.
C. a written close analysis and critical interpretation of a literary text in terms of form and theme,
with a description of its context derived from research;
D. critical paper that analyzes literary texts in relation to the context of the reader and the writer or
a critical paper that interprets literary texts using any of the critical approaches; and
E. an adaptation of a text into other creative forms using multimedia.

IV. LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of this lesson, the learners will be able to:
1. Identify the geographic, linguistic, and ethnic dimensions of Philippine literary history from pre-
colonial to the contemporary.
2. Complete the table below by supplying the necessary pieces of information.
 VI. LESSON PROPER

Figures of Speech and Literary Techniques

Literal Language
• The actual, dictionary meaning of a word; language that means what it appears to mean
Figurative Language
• Language that goes beyond the normal meaning of the words used.

Dr. Marjorie Evasco

Marjorie Evasco was born in 1953 in Maribojoc, Bohol, Philippines. She is a poet writing in two
languages: English and her mother tongue, Binisaya (Boholano-Visayan). In 2010 she was given the SEA
(South East Asian) Writers’ Award for poetry by then Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn (now King of
Thailand). She had also been given the Philippine National Commission on Culture and the Arts “Ani ng
Dangal” award, and the Writers’ Union of the Philippines’ “Gawad Balagtas” for poetry in English and
Cebuano. She represented the Philippines in the Poetry Parnassus festival in the Southbank Centre during
the 2012 London Olympics.

Is it the Kingfisher? Guide Question:

By Marjorie Evasco
This is how I desire god on this island
With you today: basic and blue
As the sea that softens our feet with salt
And brings the living wave to our mouths
Playing with sounds of a primary language
“God is blue”, sang the poet Juan Ramon Jimenez,
1. Are there different ways to communicate
with his or her God? How can your
relationship with God be reflected?
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Drunk with desiring, his hair, eyebrows,

Eyelashes turned blue as the kingfisher’s wings
It is this bird that greets us as we come
Round the eastern bend of this island;
Setting:
Tells us the hairbreadth boundary between us
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Is transient as the air, permeable to the blue _________________________________
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Theme:
Of tropic skies and mountain gentian
Where we sit on this rock covered with seaweeds,
I suddenly feel the blueness embrace us,
This rock, this island, this changed air,
The distance between us and the Self
We have longed to be. A bolt of burning blue
Lights in my brain, gives the answer
We’ve pursued this whole day:
Seawaves sing it, the kingfisher flies in it,
This island is rooted in it, Desiring
God is transparent blue – the color
Which makes our souls visible.

Figures of Speech
1. Simile
A figure of speech in which a comparison is made between unlike or dissimilar objects using the
words like or as.
2. Metaphor
A figure of speech in which a comparison is drawn between two dissimilar or unlike things
without the use of like or as.
Examples:
A good laugh is sunshine in a house.
The classroom was a zoo.
Their home was a prison.
She feels that life is a fashion show
3. Personification
A figure of speech in which animals, ideas, or objects are given human characteristics or form.
Examples:
The tree bowed and waved to me in the wind.
Lightning danced across the sky.
The car complained as the key was turned.
 My alarm clock yells at me every morning.
The door protested as it opened slowly.
4. Oxymoron
An oxymoron is a figure of speech in which contradictory terms appear in conjunction with one
another.
Example:
Jumbo Shrimp
Accidentally on Purpose
A Fine Mess
‘A small loan of a million dollars’ –Donald Trump
Awfully Nice
Pretty Ugly

5. Paradox
a seemingly contradictory, unbelievable, or absurd statement that can be explained or shown as
true;
“a contradictory statement that involves truth—often a surprising truth”.
Examples of Paradox
Your enemy’s friend is your enemy.
I must be cruel to be kind.
Truth is honey which is bitter.
I will close my eyes so I can see.

Task 2: Is it the Kingfisher?

Identify and explain at least 3 figures of speech in the poem “Is It the Kingfisher?” by Marjorie Evasco.
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VII. TESTING YOUR SKILLS

Task 3: Read the essay below then identify the figure of speech used in the
highlighted sentences.

Pliant Like the Bamboo (excerpt)

Ismael V. Mallari

There is a story in Philippine folklore about a mango tree and a bamboo tree. (1.)Not being able to agree
as to which the stronger of the two was, they called upon the wind to make the decision. The wind
blew hardest. The mango tree stood fast. It would not yield. It knew it was strong and sturdy. It would not
sway. It was too proud. It was too sure of itself. But finally its root gave way, and it tumbled down. The
bamboo tree was wiser. (2) It knew it was not as robust as the mango tree. And so every time the wind
blew, it bent its head gracefully. It made loud protestations, but let the wind have its way. When finally
the wind got tired of blowing, the bamboo tree still stood in all its beauty and grace.

The Filipino is like the bamboo tree. He knows that he is not strong enough, to withstand the onslaught of
superior forces. And so he yields. He bends his head gracefully with many loud protestations. And he has
survived. The Spaniards came and dominated him for more than three hundred years. (3) And, when the
Spaniards left, the Filipinos had a bittersweet victory, and they still stood—only much richer in
experience and culture. The Americans took place of the Spaniards. They used more subtle means of
winning over the Filipinos to their mode of living and thinking. The Filipinos embraced the American
way of life more readily than the Spaniard’s vague promises hereafter. (4)Then the Japanese came like
a storm, like a plague of locusts, like a pestilence—rude, relentless, cruel. The Filipino learned to bow
his head low, to “cooperate” with the Japanese in their “holy mission of establishing the Co-Prosperity
Sphere.”

(5) The Filipino had only hate and contempt for the Japanese, but he learned to smile sweetly at
them and to thank them graciously for their “benevolence and magnanimity”. And now that the
Americans have come back and driven away the Japanese, those Filipinos who profited most from
cooperating with the Japanese have been loudest in their protestations of innocence. Everything is as if
the Japanese had never been in the Philippines.

(6) He has a saying that life is like a wheel. Sometimes it is up, sometimes it is down. The monsoon
season comes, and he has to go undercover. But then the sun comes out again. (7) The flowers bloom,
and the birds sing in the trees. You cut off the branches of a tree, and, while the marks of the bolo* are
still upon it, it begins to shoot forth-new branches—branches that are the promise of new color, new
fragrance, and new life.

No wonder that the Filipino can afford to laugh. For the Filipino is endowed with saving grace of humor.
This humor is earthly as befits one who has not indulged in deep contemplation. But it has enabled the
Filipino to shrug his shoulders in times of adversity and say to himself “Bahalana”*. The Filipino has
often been accused of being indolent and of lacking initiative. And he has answered back* that no one can
help being indolent and lacking in initiative who lives under the torrid sun which saps the vitality.This
seeming lack of vitality is, however, only one of his means of survival. He does not allow the world to be
too much with him. Like the bamboo tree, (8) he lets the winds of chance and circumstance blow all
about him; and he is unperturbed and serene.

(9) The Filipino, in fact, has a way of escaping from the cruel yet kind problems of life. Most of his
art is escapist in nature. His forefathers wallowed in the *moro-moro, the awit, and the kurido. They
loved to identify themselves as gallant knights battling for the favors of fair ladies or the possession of
hallowed place. And now he himself loves to be lost in the throes and modern romance and adventure.
The Filipino is eminently suited to his romantic role. He is slender and wiry. He is nimble and graceful in
his movements, his voice is soft, and he has the gift of language. In what other place in the world can you
find a people who can carry on a fluent conversation in at least three languages?

This gift is another means by which the Filipino as managed to survive. There is no insurmountable
barrier between him and any of the people who have come to live with him— Spanish, American, and
Japanese. The foreigners do not have learn his language. He easily manages to master theirs. Verily, the
Filipino is like the bamboo tree. (10) In its grace, in its ability to adjust itself to the peculiar and
inexplicable whims of fate, the bamboo tree is his expressive and symbolic national tree, it will have
to be, not the molave or the narra, but the bamboo.

1. 6.
2. 7.
3. 8.
4. 9.
5. 10.

PREPARED & FACILITATED BY Ms. Polyana R. Abellano, LPT

DEPARTMENT SHS
ACADEMIC YEAR FIRST SEM, 2022-2023
REFERENCES & ADDITIONAL READINGS Andrew John C. Baronda (2016).
21st CENTURY LITERATURE FROM THE
PHILIPPINES AND THE WORLD: JFS
Publishing Services.
Manila Philippines.

VI. GRADING SYSTEM

GRADING COMPONENTS WEIGHT

WRITTEN WORK 25%
PERFORMANCE 45%
EXAMINATION 30%
TOTAL 100%

VII. INSTRUCTOR AND BEYOND