An Overview of

Philippine Literary
History
PREPARED BY
MAESTRO KELBONG
REALISM or
FANTASY
 REALISM
Realism, sometimes called naturalism, in the
arts is generally the attempt to represent subject
matter truthfully, without artificiality and
avoiding artistic conventions, or implausible,
exotic, and supernatural elements. Realism has
been prevalent in the arts at many periods, and
can be in large part a matter of technique and
training, and the avoidance of stylization.
 REALISM
In the visual arts, illusionistic realism is the accurate
depiction of lifeforms, perspective, and the details of
light and color. But realist or naturalist works of art
may, as well or instead of illusionist realism, be "realist"
in their subject-matter, and emphasize the mundane,
ugly or sordid. This is typical of the 19th-century Realist
movement that began in France in the 1850s, after
the 1848 Revolution,[1] and also social
realism, regionalism, or kitchen sink realism.
 REALISM

There have been various movements

invoking realism in the other arts, such
as the opera style of verismo, literary
realism, theatrical realism, and Italian
neorealist cinema.
In what way is nationalism an ideology?
How did the form of Rizal’s novel (aside
from its content) bring about idealogy?
What is genre as products of historical moment
and are ideological too?
 What is genre?

A way of organizing language

into discourse that is meaningful
to its producer (author) and
audience (readers, viewers)
 Genres are ways of
imagining and responding to
reality and are, thus
ideological.
 In what way does genre shape
content?
Genre is a kind of writing that shapes the
meaning through a particular organization
of language.
 Genre is a group of conventional and
organized structuring effects that enable
the production of meaning and the
meaningful context of language.
 In what way does history shape
literary genres?
It emphasizes the historical specificity
and explains how literary forms emerge,
develop, mutate or die.
 That each historical period is marked by
its own unique coexistence of genres is a
manifestation of those moments ideology.
 What does the word ideology
mean?
a system of beliefs or ideals
pertains to “form of consciousness”
“an imaginary relationship to our real
conditions of existence, lived experience
of historical reality or the way we make
sense of our world.” (French critic, Louis
Althusser).
 A consideration of literature’s
abiding relationship to history can
enlarge our understanding of how
the literary, in its symbolic
representation of human
experience, can also affect changes
in how we live out or experience
and interpret our realities.
 REALISM vs. FANTASY
 Unlike realism, fantasy rejects the rational
view of the world.
 It tends to privilege an idealistic worldview
where the supernatural or the magical can
coexist with the more recognizable
workaday rhythm of the real world.
For instance, The Lion, The Witch and the
Wardrobe.
Think of one item in class and reject
the rational view of it by providing
details of its other side of existence.
Example: a pencil : commonly used in
drawing, writing and sketching.
Fantasized option: put cotton on it and
use it to clean your ears. Hehehe…
 FANTASY vs. FAIRYTALE
 Fantasy is influenced by the fairy tale.
 Fairy tales are older and grew out of archaic
society and are shaped by archaic thought.
 Fantasy, in contrast, is a conscious creation of
an author, plots commence in a realistic
setting and time, to a magical and return
them to initial scene.
For instance, Peter Pan and Alice in
Wonderland.
GENRES OF ORAL LORE
Folklore
Myth
Legend
FOLKLORE
 FOLKTALES
 Regarded as fiction
 They are not considered as dogma or
history
 They may or may not have happened,
and not to be taken seriously
 They have important functions such as
imparting a lesson in the case of fables
MYTH
 MYTH
 Considered to be truthful accounts of what happened
in the remote past
 They are accepted on faith
 They are taught to be believed
 Usually
sacred and are often associated with
theology and ritual
 Their
main characters are not usually human beings,
but often have human attributes
 Theyare animals, deities, culture heroes, whose
actions are set in an earlier world.
LEGEND
 LEGEND
 Regarded as true by the teller and his audience but
they are set in a period considered less remote
 Moreoften secular than sacred and principal
characters are human
 They tell migrations, wars, and victories, deeds of
past heroes, chiefs, and kings, and succession in
ruling dynasties
 are often the counterparts in verbal tradition of
written history, but they also include local tales of
buried treasures, ghosts, fairies, and saints