World Literature

Understanding the Concept of Literature

Literature comes from the Latin word "LITERA" which literally means an
acquaintance with letters, the root definition of literature. It is a body of literary
productions, either oral, written, or visual containing imaginative language that realistically
portrays thoughts, emotions, and experiences of the human condition.

Literature is language in use that provides insights and intellectual stimulation

to the reader. As one explores literature, he likewise discovers the beauty of language.

Literature is a product of a particular culture that concretizes man's array of

values, emotions, actions, and ideas. It is therefore a creation of human experience that
tells about people and their world.

Literature is an art that reflects the work of imagination, aesthetics, and

creative writing which are distinguished for the beauty of style or expression as in
fiction, poetry, essay, or drama, in distinction from scientific treatises and works which
contain positive knowledge.

Literary Standards
1. UNIVERSALITY
Literature appeals to everyone, regardless of culture, race, sex, and time, which are
all, considered significant.

2. ARTISTRY
Literature has an aesthetic appeal and thus possesses a sense of beauty.

3. INTELLECTUAL VALUE
Literature stimulates critical thinking that enriches mental processes of abstract and
reasoning, making man realize the fundamental truths of life and its nature.

4. SUGGESTIVENESS
Literature unravels and conjures man's emotional power to define symbolisms,
nuances, implied meanings, images and messages, giving and evoking visions above and
beyond the plane of ordinary life and experience.

5. SPIRITUAL VALUE
Literature elevates the spirit and the soul and thus has the power to motivate and
inspire, drawn from the suggested morals or lessons of the different literary genres.

6. PERMANENCE
Literature endures across time and draws out the time factor: timeliness, occurring at
a particular time, and timelessness, remaining invariable throughout time.

7. STYLE
Literature presents peculiar way/s on how man sees life as evidenced by the
formation of his ideas, forms, structures, and expressions which are marked by their
memorable substance.
LITERARY MODELS
The study of Literature appeals in different aspects and importance. Some of the noted
ones include:
1. Cultural Model
Literature aims to understand and appreciate cultures and ideologies different from
one's own in time and space.
2. Language Model
Literature aims to promote language development like vocabulary and structure.
3. Personal Growth Model
Literature aims to help one achieving lasting pleasure and deep satisfaction in
reading.
CLASSIFICATIONS OF LITERATURE
A. Structure
 FICTION
It is a literary work of imaginative narration, either oral or written, fashioned to
entertain and to make the readers think and, more so, to feel.

 NON-FICTION
It is a literary work of "real life" narration or exposition based on history and facts
whose main thrust is intellectual appeal to convey facts, theories, generalizations, or
concepts about a particular topic.

B. Form
 PROSE
It is a literary work that is spoken or written within the common flow of language in
sentences and paragraphs which give information, relate events, express ideas, or present
opinions. It is literary medium that corresponds closely to everyday speech patterns and is
used to provide detailed descriptions of ideas, objects, or situations.

 POETRY
It is literary work expressed in verse, measure, rhythm, sound, and imaginative
language and creates an emotional response to an experience, feeling or fact.

C. Genre
 FICTION
It is a narrative in prose that shows an imaginative recreation and reconstruction of
life and presents human life in two levels: the world of objective reality made up of human
actions and experiences and the world of subjective reality dealing with human
apprehension and comprehension categorized either as novel or short story.

 POETRY
It a patterned form of verbal or written expression of ideas in concentrated,
imaginative, and rhythmical terms that often contain the elements of sense, sound, and
structure.

 ESSAY
It is a prose composition in moderate length that presents a tentative exploration or
evaluation of a subject and this explains a viewpoint or anything that can be said on a
particular subject.
 DRAMA
It is a composition in prose form that presents story told entirely in dialogue and
action, and written with the intention of its eventual performance before an audience.

LITERARY APPROACH
1. Formalistic Approach
Literature is viewed intrinsically, independent of the author, age, or any other
extrinsic factor. The study of the selection is more or less based on the so-called "literary
elements."

2. Moral or Humanistic Approach

Literature is viewed to discuss man and its nature. It presents man as essentially
rational; that is endowed with intellect and free will: or that the piece does not misinterpret
the true nature of man. The approach is close to the "morality" of literature, to questions of
ethical goodness or badness.

3. Historical Approach
Literature is seen both as a reflection and product of the times and circumstances in
which it was written. It operates on the premise that the history of a nation has telling
effects on its literature and that the piece can be better understood and appreciated if one
knows the times surrounding its creation.

4. Sociological Approach
Literature is viewed as the expression of man within a given social situation which is
reduced to discussion on economics, in which men are somewhat simplistically divided into
haves and haves not, thus passing into the "proletarian approach" which tends to
underscore the conflict between the two classes. The sociological approach stresses on
social "relevance," social "commitment," contemporaneity, and it deems communication
with the reader important.

5. Cultural Approach
Literature is seen as one of the manifestations and vehicles of a nation's or race's
culture and tradition. It includes the entire complex of what goes under "culture"--the
technological, artistic, sociological, ideological aspects; and considers the literary piece in
the total cultural milieu in which it was born. The thrust is to make full use of the reciprocal
function between culture and literature. The approach is one of the richest ways to arrive at
the culture of the people and one of the most pleasurable ways of appreciating the
literature of people.

6. Psychological Approach
Literature is viewed as the expression of "personality," of "inner drives," of "neurosis."
It includes the psychology of the author, of the characters, and even the psychology of
creation. It has under resulted in an almost exhaustive "psychological analysis" of
characters, of symbols and images, of recurrent themes, and others.

7. Impressionistic Approach
Literature is viewed to elucidate "reaction-response" which is considered as
something very personal, relative, and fruitful. Unconditioned by explanations and often
taking the impact of the piece as a whole, it seeks to see how the piece has communicated.
 LESSON 2: LITERARY GENRES
Major Genres of Literature: 1. PROSE 2. POETRY 3. DRAMA
1. PROSE
Consists of those written within the common flow of conversation in sentence and
paragraphs. Prose is a form of language, which applies ordinary grammatical structure, and
natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure (as in traditional poetry).

It is commonly used, for example:

1. NOVEL
– This is long narrative divided into chapters. The events are taken from to life
stories…and spam long period of time.

2. SHORT STORY
- It is a narrative involving one or more characters, one plot and one single
impression.

3. PLAYS
– This is presented on stage, is divided into acts and has many scenes.

4. LEGENDS
– These are fictitious narratives, usually about origins.

5. FABLES
– These are also fictitious, they deal animals and imitate 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.

6. ANECDOTES
– A merely product of the writer’s imagination and the main aim is to bring out
lessons to the readers and attitudes.

7. ESSAY
– This expresses the viewpoint of the writer about a particular problem or event.

8. BIOGRAPHY
– It deals with the life of a person, which may be about himself, his autobiography or
that of others.

9. NEWS
– Is a report of everyday events in society, government, science and industry and
accidents, happening nationally or not.

10. ORATION
– 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.

Elements of Fiction
Elements of fiction and elements of story in general can be used by the reader to
increase their enjoyment and understanding of different literary pieces. Once students are
aware that all stories have elements of character, setting, plot, theme, point of view, style,
and tone; they can be encouraged to ask themselves to identify the characteristics of each
for a particular story. The more familiar they become with the different kinds of elements
the better they will understand and critically analyze stories.

A. Character
 Character is the mental, emotional, and social qualities to distinguish one entity from
another (people, animals, spirits, automatons, pieces of furniture, and other animated
objects).
 Character development is the change that a character undergoes from the beginning of
a story to the end.
 Characterization is the method used by the writer to reveal the personality of the
character/s.

Characters are developed by

1. Actions:
In Charlottes' Web, Templeton, creeps up cautiously to the goslings, keeping close to
the wall. Later he grins when Wilbur falls trying to spin a web. At the fair he bites Wilbur's
tail as hard as he possibly can. His actions portray him as sneaky, ill-tempered, and pleased
at others' discomfort.

2. Speech:
In Charlottes' Web, Templeton after Wilbur asks him to play, frolic or have fun.
Replies, "...I never do those things if I can avoid them... I prefer to spend my time eating,
gnawing, spying, and hiding... I am a glutton not a merry-maker. Right now I am on my way
to your trough to eat your breakfast, since you haven't got sense enough to eat it yourself"

3. Appearance:
In Charlottes' Web, Templeton after his night at the fair returns swollen to double his
usual size. He agrees to fetch the egg sac so that he may eat first every day and grow
fatter and bigger than any other known rat.

4. Other character's comments:

Other characters' comments help form judgment of the characters by supporting
other characters' actions speech, appearance, and author's comments.

5. Author's comments:
The wording the author uses in the narrative adds to characterization. In Charlottes'
Web, White describes Templeton ...had no morals, no conscience, no scruples, no
consideration, no decency, no milk of rodent kindness, no compunction, no higher feeling,
no friendliness, no anything. He would kill a gosling if he could get away with it. These
statements certainly develop character.

6. Unity of character and action:

The character must be credible. If the character changes then the change must be
shaped by events which the author is obligated to explain how they impacted to create the
character's change. Stories with main character change: Meg; A Wrinkle in Time, Claudia;
From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, the Duck; The Ugly Duckling, Wilbur;
Charlotte's Web and Jess; Bridge To Terabithia.

Types of Character
• Round characters
- are those the reader/listener/viewer gets to know well. They have a variety of traits
that make them believable. Central characters are well developed in good literature. Meg,
Claudia, Duck, Wilbur, and Jess are the central character, or protagonist (hero or heroine).

• Flat characters
- are less well developed and have fewer or limited traits or belong to a group, class,
or stereotype. Fern in Charlotte's Web. A character foil are minor characters whose traits
contrast with a main character. The lamb is young and naive as Wilbur, but she is smug
instead of humble.

• Anthropomorphic characterization
- the characterization of animals, inanimate objects, or natural phenomena as
people. Skilled authors can use this to create fantasy even from stuffed toys (Winnie-the-
Pooh). The characterizing of inanimate objects from tiny soldiers to trees and so on is
represented in Andersen's works and the ballet The Nutcracker.

• Animal characters
- in realism are best when the animals act only like animals as in The Incredible
Journey.

Kinds of Character
According to Principality:
1. Protagonist is the character with whom the reader empathizes. It is the leading
character or one of the major characters in a drama, movie, novel, or other fictional text.

2. Antagonist is the character that goes against the main character, usually the
protagonist.

B. Setting
Setting is the time and space in which the events of a story occur. It consists of the use of
evocative portrayal of a region’s distinctive ways of thoughts and behavior or the so called
“local color” exemplified by the superficial elements of setting, dialect, and customs.

Backdrop setting is when the setting is unimportant for the story and the story could take
place in any setting. Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne is an example of a story in which could
happen in any setting.

Integral setting is when the action, character, or theme are influenced by the time and
place, setting.

Controlling setting controls characters. If you confine a character to a certain setting it

defines the character. Characters, given these circumstances, in this time and place,
behave in this way.

Setting that illuminates character: The confining setting of the attic in Anne Frank and
Flowers in the Attic help the characters find themselves and grow as individuals.

Setting as symbolism: a symbol is a person, place, object, situation, or action which

operates on two levels of meaning, B the literal and the figurative, or suggestive. A
grouping of symbols may create an image called an allegory. The Narnia books by C. S.
Lewis are allegories.

C. Plot
Plot is the sequence of events in the story, arranged and linked by causality.

 Kinds of Plot
1. Linear Plot moves with the natural sequence if events where actions are arranged
sequentially.

2. Circular Plot is a kind of plot where linear development of the story merges with an
interruption in the chronological order to show an event that happened in the past.

3. En Medias Res is a kind of plot where the story commences the middle part of the
action.

 Parts of a Plot
1. Exposition is the part of the plot that sets the scene by introducing the situation
and settings and likewise lays out the characters by introducing their environment,
characteristics, pursuit, purpose, limitations, potentials, and basic assumptions.

2. Conflict is the primary problem that drives the plot of the story, often a main goal for
the protagonist to achieve or overcome.

3. Rising Action of the story is all of the events that lead to the eventual climax, including
character development and events that create suspense.

4. Climax of a story is the peak of the action. At this point, we've watched the main
character confront the action or conflict, and now something major has to come to a head.
This is the point of greatest emotional intensity, interest, as well as suspense.

5. Falling Action, which is also known as denouement, is the finishing of things right
after the climax and shows the resolution of the plot.

6. Resolution is the part that brings the story back to its equilibrium.

 Types of Conflict
1. Internal- Struggle within one's self.
 Person vs. Self - Struggles with own soul, physical limitations, choices, etc.

2. External - Struggle with a force outside one's self.

 Person vs. Person - Struggles against other people.
 Person vs. Nature - Struggles against animals, weather, environment, etc.
 Person vs. Society - Struggles against ideas, practices, or customs of others

D. Point of View
The angle from which the story is told.

Types of Point of View

1. First Person - Story told by the protagonist or a character who interacts closely with
the protagonist or other characters; speaker uses the pronouns "I", "me", "we".
2. Second Person - Story told by a narrator who addresses the reader or some other
assumed "you"; speaker uses pronouns "you", "your", and "yours".

3. Third Person - Story told by a narrator who sees all of the action; speaker uses the
pronouns "he", "she", "it", "they", "his", "hers", "its", and "theirs".

4. Third Person Central Point of View – has a narrator that limits narration to what the
central character thinks, feels, does, and what and whom the central character observes.

5. Third Person Editorial Point of View – has a narrator that comments on each on the
action by telling the readers its significance or evaluating the behavior of the characters.

E. Theme
It is a significant truth about life and its nature which takes place in the illustrations of
the actions, preoccupations, and decisions of the character.

Principles in Stating the Theme of the Story

1. It reports for all major details of the story.
2. It may be avowed in more than one way.
3. It is stated in complete statements.
4. It asserts a sweeping statement about life.
5. It avoid statements that condense the theme to some familiar adage, aphorism,
dictum, maxim, saying, or value.

2. Poetry
– Comes from the Greek poiesis — with a broad meaning of a "making", seen also in
such terms as "hemopoiesis"; more narrowly, the making of poetry. It is refers to those,
expressions in verse, with measure and rhyme, line and stanza and has a more melodious
tone.

– It is a patterned form of verbal or written expression of ideas in concentrated,

imaginative, and rhythmical terms that often contain the element of sense, sound, and
structure. It considered as the oldest literary form.

Two types of poetry:

1. NARRATIVE POETRY – describes important events in life real or imaginary.

2. LYRIC POETRY - refers to that king of poetry meant to be song to the accompaniment
of a lyre, but now this applies to any type of poetry that expresses emotions and fillings of
the poet.

Types of Narrative
Poetry:
A. EPIC
An extended narrative about heroic exploits often under supernatural control. It may
deal with heroes and gods.

B. METRICAL TALE
A Narrative, which is written in verse and can be classified either as a ballad or as a
metrical romance.
C. BALLADS
Of the narrative poems, this is the shortest and simplest. It has a simple structure
and tells of a single incident.

Types of Lyric
Poetry:
A. FOLKSONGS (AWIT NG BAYAN)
These are short poems intended to be
sung. The common theme is love, despair, B. MELODRAMA
grief, doubt, joy, hope and sorrow. It is usually used in musical plays
with opera. It arouses immediate and
B. SONNETS
intense emotions and is usually sad but
A lyric poem of 14 lines dealing with
there is a happy ending for the principal
an emotion, a feeling of an idea.
character.
C. ELEGY
This is a lyric poem, which express C. TRAGEDY
Involves the hero struggling mightily
feelings of grief and melancholy & whose
against dynamic forces; he meets death or
theme is death.
ruin without Success and satisfaction
D. ODE obtained by the protagonist in a comedy.
A poem of noble feeling, expressed
with dignity, with no definite syllables or D. FARCE
Exaggerated comedy, situations are
definite number of lines in a stanza.
too ridiculous to be true; and the
E. PSALM (DALIT) characters seem to be caricatures and the
It is a sound praising god or the motives undignified and absurd
Virgin Mary and containing a philosophy of
life.

F. AWIT (SONG) World Literature Readings

Measures of a 12 (do decasyllabic)
1. The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho
and slowly sung to the accompaniment of
2. The Cherry orchard and three
a guitar or Banduria. sisters - Anton Chekhov
G. CORRIDO 3. The Joy luck club – Amy Tan
Have measure of eight (octosyllabic) 4. The Kite runner – Khaleed Hosseini
5. The Inferno - Dante
and recited to a martial beat.
6. The Little prince - Antoine de
Saint-Exupéry
7. The Metamorphosis – Franz Kafka
3. DRAMA 8. The Iliad and odyssey - Homer
Drama is the theatrical dialogue 9. The Stranger – Albert Camus
10. The Animal Farm – George Orwell
performed on stage, it consists of 5 acts.
11. The Crime and punishment –
Types of Drama: Fyodor Dostoevsky
A. COMEDY 12. Analects of Confucius
It is comes from the Greek “komos” 13. The Woman Who Had Two
Navels – Nick Joaquin
meaning festivity or revelry. This is usually
14. Harry potter and the sorcerer
light and written with the purpose of stone – J.K Rowling
amusing, and usually has a happy ending.
15. Six Characters in Search of An
Author – Luigi Pirandello