BUENAVISTA COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Cangawa, Buenavista, Bohol

College of Teacher Education Department
Tel. No. (038) 513-9179
(038) 513-9035
1s Semester, A.Y. 2023-2024

Subject: Philippine Literature

Instructor: ELVIE C. DOBLAS, LPT

MODULE 1

I. TOPIC / LESSON
Literary Forms Based on Philippine Historical Period (continuation)
III. Contemporary Literary Forms

II. LEARNING / SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES

After this lesson, the students will be able to:
1.Understand the figures of speech.
2.Discuss the elements of poetry and short story.
3.Write examples for each figure of speech.

III. OVERVIEW
Literature is a “window to culture”, that is, reading a literary work vicariously
immerses students into the world it depicts, involving them with its character, setting,
plot, themes, and language. Literature, whether narrative (short story, novel, poem) or
dramatic (play), provides a stage where students can be involved with the attitudes and
thoughts of the characters.
There are different forms of literature in the Philippines according to its historical
period. Through reading with comprehension and participation of the teacher’s
discussion, students will be able to gain insights and understanding into their country’s
culture. They will learn to appreciate the Filipino’s way of living, the Filipino’s way of
transferring, informing and handling literature from one generation to another
generation.
Contemporary is one of the literary forms that is still existing until today. Would it
be poetry, short stories, the use of figures of speech, non-fiction, etc. The students’
ability in writing contemporary forms of literature will be enhanced through reading this
module.

IV. COURSE CONTENT

LITERARY FORMS BASED ON PHILIPPINE HISTORICAL PERIOD

III.CONTEMPORARY LITERARY FORMS

 Unlocking of Difficult Words
The following term is defined operationally:
1.foot – consists of accented or stressed and unaccented syllables or vice versa

Example:
Whose woods / these are/ I think / I
know.

One line of a poem

Unaccented accented
Syllable syllable this is one foot

A. POETRY
Poems are literary attempts to share personal experiences and feelings. Since
literature, in general, is all about significant human experiences, poetry’s subject matter
is also about the poet’s personal life or the lives of those around him. Good poems,
aside from being stated in a fresh manner, often probe deeply and can contain
disturbing insights. The language is fresh and demanding because of its subtleties. Good
poems show images which leave the reader a sense of delight, awe, and wonder.

The following elements of poetry will help a reader understand a poem:

1. The Poetic Line. The basic unit of composition in poems. An idea or feeling which is
expressed in one line and is frequently continued into the next line. This
is called enjambment or run-on lines. Enjambment is derived from the
French phrase enjambment meaning to “straddle something,” as the
sentence extends to a next line.
Here are a few basic examples of enjambment in poetry:
Example 1.
We were running
to find what had happened
beyond the hills.

If written as a sentence (We were running to find what had happened beyond the
hills) it is clear that this phrase has no punctuation until the end. In the poem, each line is
enjambed until the period at the end of the third line.
Example 2.
The sun hovered above
the horizon, suspended between
night and day.
 This example is similar: the first and second lines are enjambed, whereas the third
is end-stopped.
Without enjambment, poetry would sound like this:

I finished my day.
I went home on the highway.
I ate dinner and went to sleep.
Constantly end-stopped (lines that end with punctuation) poetry is rhythmic but
ultimately dull.
2. The Sound of Words. An indirection prominent in the method of poetry is the
use of sound effects to intensify meaning. For the poet to convey ideas, he
chooses and organizes his words into a pattern of sound that is a part of
the total meaning. These sound effects are the products of organized
repetitions. They are the following:
a. Rhyme repeats similar sounds in some apparent scheme.
Example:
“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King’s horses, And all the King’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again!”
b. Rhythm is the result of systematically stressing or accenting words and
syllables. Or these rhythms are of different patterns of stressed (/)
and unstressed (x) syllables.
Example of Rhythm in Literature:

Romeo Juliet (By William Shakespeare)

“Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;”

There are ten syllables in iamb pentameter, where the second syllable is
accented or stressed. In the above lines the stressed syllables are expressed in
bold.

c. Alliteration means the repetition for effect of initial consonants.

Examples:
1.He clasps the crags with crooked hands
(Tennyson)
2.The chilling cold almost chopped him apart.
 3.Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
4.A good cook could cook as much cookies as a good cook
who could cook cookies.
5. Black bug bit a big black bear.
6. Sheep should sleep in a shed.
7.I saw a saw that could out saw any other saw I ever saw.
d. Assonance refers to the correspondence of vowel sounds.
Examples:
1."Hear the mellow wedding bells" by Edgar Allen Poe.
By Pink Floyd:
2. "I lie down by the side for my bride"
3."Fleet feet sweep by sleeping geese"
4."Hear the lark and harken to the barking of the dark fox
gone to ground"
e. Onomatopoeia is a long word that means simply the imitation in words
of natural sounds.
Examples:
1. Hiss, buzz, mew
2. Poem: “The Bells” by Edgar Allan Poe
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, / In the icy air of night!; To the
tintinnabulation that so musically wells / From the bells, bells,
bells, bells, / Bells, bells, bells / From the jingling and the tinkling
of the bells.

3. Meter is the regularized and pattern rhythm. These rhythms are of different patterns of
stressed (/) and unstressed (x) syllables. Each unit of these types is called foot.
There are four conventional types of meters in poetry written in English each being
distinguished from the others by the number and accent of syllables:
a. Iambic meter. By far, the most popular and the most natural to English
expression. Its basic unit or foot is one unaccented or one not
stressed and one accented syllable or one stressed. ( x / )
Example:
1.Whose woods/ these are/ I think/ I
know.
2.“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
(Sonnet 18, by William Shakespeare)

b.Troachaic meter. The reverse of iambic meter. Each foot contains an

accented or stressed and an unaccented or not stressed syllable.
( / x)
Example:
 “Tell me not, in mournful numbers”
(Psalm of Life, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

c.Anapestic meter. They have three syllables; where the first two syllables
are not stressed or unaccented, and the last syllable is stressed or
accented. ( x x / )
Example:
” ‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the
house,”
(‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, by Clement Clarke Moore)

d.Dactylic meter. Opposite of anapestic. It is made up of three syllables.

The first syllable is stressed or accented, and the remaining two syllables
are not stressed or unaccented, such as in the word “marvelous.” ( / x x )
Example:
This is the / forest pri / meval.

Seeing what the metrical units are and how many of them occur in the line is
called “scanning” a line of poetry.
One-foot line – is called monometer
Two-foot line – diameter
Three-foot line – trimeter
Four-foot line – tetrameter
Five-foot line – pentameter
Six-foot line – hexameter, and up to
Seven-foot line – heptameter
Thus, the iambic line above is a tetrameter, and the dactylic line a trimeter.

4. Imagery. More than a visual detail, imagery includes sounds, textures, feel,
odors, and sometimes even tastes.By means of images,
the poet makes the reader think about the meaning of the poem.

Types of Imagery:
a. Visual Imagery
Visual imagery describes what we see: comic book images,
paintings, or images directly experienced through the narrator’s eyes. Visual
imagery may include:
Color, such as: burnt red, bright orange, dull yellow, verdant green,
and Robin’s egg blue.
Shapes, such as: square, circular, tubular, rectangular, and conical.
Size, such as: miniscule, tiny, small, medium-sized, large, and gigantic.
Pattern, such as: polka-dotted, striped, zig-zagged, jagged, and straight.
 b. Auditory Imagery
Auditory imagery describes what we hear, from music to noise to pure silence.
Auditory imagery may include:
Enjoyable sounds, such as: beautiful music, birdsong, and the voices of a
chorus
Noises, such as: the bang of a gun, the sound of a broom moving across the
floor, and the sound of broken glass shattering on the hard
floor
The lack of noise, describing a peaceful calm or eerie silence.
Olfactory imagery describes what we smell. Olfactory imagery may
include:
Fragrances, such as perfumes, enticing food and drink, and blooming
flowers.
Odors, such as rotting trash, body odors, or a stinky wet dog.
c. Gustatory Imagery
Gustatory imagery describes what we taste. Gustatory imagery can
include:
Sweetness, such as candies, cookies, and desserts.
Sourness, bitterness, and tartness, such as lemons and limes.
Saltiness, such as pretzels, French fries, and pepperonis.
Spiciness, such as salsas and curries.
Savoriness, such as a steak dinner or thick soup.
d. Tactile Imagery
Tactile imagery describes what we feel or touch. Tactile imagery
Includes:
Temperature, such as bitter cold, humidity, mildness, and stifling heat.
Texture, such as rough, ragged, seamless, and smooth.
Touch, such as hand-holding, one’s in the grass, or the feeling of starched
fabric on one’s skin.
Movement, such as burning muscles from exertion, swimming in cold water,
or kicking a soccer ball.

This famous poem by Theodore Rothke is an excellent example of olfactory and

tactile imagery with plenty of visual imagery thrown in for good measure. The effect is
powerful.
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
 The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

5. Tone. Reveals the attitude toward the subject and in some cases the
attitude of the persona or implied speaker of the poem as well.
Examples of tone are:
cheerful, sad, reflective, serious, angry, anxious, and others.

Another examples are:

Example #1
Father: “We are going on a vacation.”
Son: “That’s great!!!”
– The tone of son’s response is very cheerful.
Example #2
Father: “We can’t go on vacation this summer.”
Son: “Yeah, great! That’s what I expected.”
– The son’s tone is sarcastic.
Example #3
“Yeah, your grades on this exam will be as good as
the previous exams.”
– The tone is pessimistic in this example.
Example #4
“Can someone tell me what the hell is going on here?”
– This has an aggressive tone.

A. FIGURES OF SPEECH

Much of the suggestive power of words comes from figures of speech. They are an essential part
of the poet’s craft especially if stated in his original, fresh, and subtle way.

1. Simile is a directly expressed comparison between two dissimilar objects by means

of the words like, as, or as if.
Examples:
1.Serenity of mind poises
Like a gull swinging in air.
2.You were as brave as a lion.
3.They fought like cats and dogs.
 4.He is as funny as a barrel of monkeys.
2. Metaphor gives an implied, not expressed, comparison to two unlike objects, but
which share some common characteristics.
Examples:
1.Good books are food and drink to an avid reader.
2.When I saw her smile, a stone rolled away from my heart.
3.The snow is a white blanket.
4.He is a shining star.
Take Note:
The main difference between a simile and metaphor is that a simile uses the words "like"
or "as" to draw a comparison and a metaphor simply states the comparison without using "like" or
"as".
An example of a simile is: She is as innocent as an angel.
An example of a metaphor is: She is an angel.
3. Personification gives an inanimate object or an abstract idea a human attribute or
considers it a live being.
Examples:
1.At last the wind sighed itself to sleep.
2.Lightning danced across the sky.
3.The wind howled in the night.
4.The wind sang through the meadow.

4. Apostrophe is an address to the absent as if he were present or somebody dead as if

he were alive or to inanimate things as if they were animated.
- In literature, apostrophe is a figure of speech sometimes represented by an
exclamation, such as “Oh.” A writer or speaker, using apostrophe, speaks directly to
someone who is not present or is dead, or speaks to an inanimate object.
Examples:
1.Mountains and hills come and fall on me.
2.“Ugh, cell phone, why won’t you load my messages?”
3.“Oh, Starbucks, how I love you! Your medium dark roast allowed me to
survive that meeting!
4. Car, please get me to work today.
5. Metonymy. One word is put for another which it suggests. It consists in giving an idea
that is so closely associated with another.
- Metonymy (pronounced mi-ton--uh-mee), which is a figure of speech that
replaces words with related or associated words.
- A metonymy is typically a part of a larger whole, for example, when we say
“wheels,” we are figuratively referring to a “car” and not literally only the wheels. So,
“wheels” are the associated part that represent the whole car.
Examples:
1.The pen is mightier than the sword.
- In this example, we replaced “written words” with “the pen”
 and “sword” to “military force”.
- Although literally a pen has no power over a sword, we understand this
phrase means that the written word and the sharing of ideas, are more
powerful than fighting, or physical force.
2.Gray hairs should be respected.
- Instead of using “Adult ones”, we used “gray hairs”
3.Let me give you a hand.
- We used the word “Hand” to replace the word “help”

6. Antithesis. A contrast of words or ideas. Contrasting words or ideas make each other
emphatic.
- Antithesis is "a contrary or opposite opinion, concept, or characteristic." So, the
sun may be the antithesis to the moon, the devil may be the antithesis to God, and a
conservative may be the antithesis to a liberal.
Examples:
1.Easy writing makes hard reading; hard writing, easy reading.
2.His body is active but his mind is sluggish.
3."Man proposes, God disposes." - Source unknown.
4."Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing." - Goethe.

7. Hyperbole. Use exaggeration not to deceive but to produce laughter.

- Hyperbole (pronounced ‘high-purr-bo-lee’) is a figure of speech in which an
author or speaker purposely and obviously exaggerates to an extreme. It is used for
emphasis or as a way of making a description more creative and humorous. It is important
to note that hyperbole is not meant to be taken literally; the audience knows it’s an
exaggeration.
Examples:
1.That suitcase weighed a ton!
-In this example, the speaker claims that a suitcase weighed a
ton–two thousand pounds! Of course, this does not mean that the
suitcase literally weighed a ton. The speaker is using hyperbole in order to
emphasize that the suitcase feels very heavy.

2.She’s going to die of embarrassment.

-This does not mean that the girl is going to get sick or that her
heart will stop due to embarrassment. Instead, the speaker is using
hyperbole to emphasize just how embarrassed she’s going to feel.

3.He's running faster than the wind.

4.Morning, noon, and night her tongue was incessantly doing.

8. Irony. Saying the opposite of what is meant in a manner or in a tone that shows what
the speaker thinks.
 - As defined, Irony is the use of words to convey a meaning that is opposite of what is
actually said.
Examples:
1.For example, a driver whose license was confiscated by a traffic officer
may say “Thank you Officer, now that you have my license I can’t drive”
-In this situation, the driver was mad and irritated at what
happened. But instead of directly expressing his anger, the driver used
Irony i.e. thanking the officer for getting his license.

2.A fire station burns down.

3.A marriage counselor files for divorce.
4.It was very kind of you to remind me of my humiliation.

B. SHORT STORY

In the history of literature, fiction, particularly the short story formally developed as a genre in
Britain, Russia, France, Germany, and the United States in the 19th century.

The chief proponents who greatly influenced almost all of today’s short story writers
were the following:
Anton Checkhov - for the character studies and anecdote incidents
Guy de Maupassant - for “twist or unexpected ending”
Edgar Allan Poe - the master of suspense

The short story as an art form deals with a single incident or situation. It is a coherent whole with a
single line of action and a single intended meaning. Thus, it does not allow for many themes and subplots.

The following are the elements of a short story:

1. Plot. This is the sequence of events or actions in the story. It is the development of the
story in terms of beginning, middle, and end. The beginning contains the conflict
which rises to a climax where the story turns before reaching a denouement or
resolution. A good plot is not based on the twist and turn of events but how
much is revealed about the characters and the theme of the story.
2. Characterization. This is how a character behaves in a certain situation. His actions will
be determined by his motivation which, in turn, is determined by his personality.
good characterization is not stereotyped, not a repetition of the same traits of
other characters. It is just seeing a range of different aspects of traits just as one
does in someone one knows well.
3. Setting. This is the milieu, the location, and time of the story. It is used as a way of
increasing credibility. The writer provides details about the setting for the reader
to shape into complete picture.
 4. Theme. It is an underlying idea that comments on human condition; a truth in life
which is in the heart of the story. The theme is usually implied rather than
stated. Two of the recurring themes in short stories are:

a. Good vs.Evil – personal evil or dark forces in man’s environment such as

disease, poverty, war, alteration, loss, oppression, dehumani-
zation, inherent evil of man.
b. Life Process
a. childhood joys and fears
b. growing up pains of adolescents
c. adult’s maturation process
d. waste and tragedy of old age
e. cycles of life and death
f. change
5. Point of View. This is the narrator of the story. It can be classified into three:
a. First Person. The narrator is the character who tells the story from his / her
own observation.
b. First Person – Observer. This is when a character tells in the first-person a
story he / she has observed.
c. Author – Observer. This is when the author relates what happens in an
objective manner without giving his / her own comments and without
explaining what goes on in the mind of the character.
d. Omniscient. The narrator is “all present”. He knows what is going on in the
Minds of the characters, and he comments on it.
6. Symbol. This is a concrete object, event, or character in the story which represents an
abstract idea like love, patriotism, and others. The meaning of a symbol is
revealed through the context of the story.
7. Conflict. Conflict in a short story could be the following:
a. Man vs. Man
b. Man vs. Society
c. Man vs. Himself
d. Man vs. Nature
V. Reference:
 Lacia, F, Fabella, Mark & Libunao, L., The Literatures of the Philippines (Rev.Ed.)., Rex Book
Store, Inc.,Manila.,2008.
 unm.edu/-hookster/Elements%20of%20Poetry.pdf
 literaryterms.net/enjambment/
 literarydevices.net/rhyme/
 literarydevices.net/rhythm/

VI. ACTIVITY GUIDES

Instructions: Kindly read the entire content of this module. Then, copy and answer the given questions
below:

1. Write your own 2 examples of each figure of speech. (2 points each example)
a. Simile
b. Metaphor
c. Personification
d. Apostrophe
e. Metonymy
f. Antithesis
g. Hyperbole
h. Irony

2. Briefly discuss the following terms in your own words. Note: Do not copy from your modules.
(2 points each)
a. rhythm
b. alliteration
c. assonance
d. theme
e. symbol
f. plot

NOTE:
1. Write your answers in 1 whole yellow pad paper and submit it on September 1,
2023.
2. Give your answer sheet/paper to your class mayor.

P.S.
CLASS MAYOR, PLEASE PUT ALL YOUR ANSWER SHEETS IN A LONG BLUE EXPANDED
ENVELOPE!
THANK YOU!