Overview

 What is literature?
 Role of literature
 Essence and functions
 Literary genres
 Approaches in literary criticism
Intended learning outcomes (ILO)

 A- formulate a personal view on the roles of literature, its

essence and functions by creating 1-2 minute recorded
video
 S - develop conceptual-models differentiating the varied
types of literary genres in the country and approaches in
literary criticism
 K- determine the uniqueness of each literary genre and
approaches in literary criticism in a form of list/graphs as
emphasized in a 1-2 minute recorded video
Literature

 Literature, in its broadest sense, is any written work

  litaritura/litteratura “writing formed with letters”
  fiction or non-fiction and whether it is poetry or prose
 novel, short story or drama, and works are often
categorized according to historical periods or their
adherence to certain aesthetic features or expectations
(genre)

Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/introliterature/chapter/defining-literature/
 literature is derived from the Latin term litera which
means letter
 Some loosely interpret literature as any printed matter
written within a book, a magazine or a pamphlet
 Others define literature as a faithful reproduction of
human’s various experiences blended into one harmonious
expression
 Since literature deals with ideas, thoughts and emotions
of humanity, literature can be said to be the story of
humanity. Human’s love, griefs, thoughts, dreams, fears
and aspirations coached in language is literature
 Brother Azurin said that, “literature expresses the feelings
of people to society, to the government, to his
surroundings, to his fellowmen and to his Divine Creator”
 According to him, “the expression of one’s feelings may
be through love, sorrow, happiness, hatred, anger, pity,
contempt or revenge”
 For Webster, literature is anything that is printed, as long
as it is related to the ideas and feelings of people, whether
it is true or just a product of one’s imagination
 According to Atienza, Ramos, Salazar and Nazal, “true
literature is a piece of written work which is undying. It
expresses the feelings and emotions of people in response
to his everyday efforts to live, to be happy in his
environment and, after struggles, to reach his Creator”
 According to American Heritage Dictionary of the English
language, literature is “imaginative or creative writing,
especially of recognized artistic value”
Philippine Literature
 Philippine literature is about writing, speaking and
presenting to different audience and various purpose; a
body of literary productions both oral and written
containing imaginative language that realistically portrays
thoughts, emotions and experiences of human condition.
 The diversity and richness of Philippine literature evolved
alongside with the nation’s history.
 This is evident in the context of the country’s pre-colonial
cultural traditions and the social-political histories of its
colonial and contemporary traditions.
Relationship of literature to history

 Literature and history are closely interrelated.

 In discovering the history of a race, the feelings,
aspirations, customs and traditions of a people are sure to
be included and these feelings, aspirations, customs and
traditions that are written is literature.
 History can also be written and this too, is literature.
 Events that can be written down are part of true literature.
Literature, therefore, is part of history.
 History and literature are disciplines that deal with much
more than numbers.
 They both have to do with feelings, emotions, different
ways of thinking.
 To understand history, one must understand the context.
 To truly understand literature, one must “read between the
lines”
Importance of literature

 Expanding horizons
 Building critical thinking skills
 A leap into the past
 Appreciation for other cultures and beliefs
 Better writing skills
 Addressing humanity
Why read literature?

 “instruction and delight”

- imaginative writing offer us the delight of immediate
escape, but imaginative writing that is more difficult to read
and understand than a Harry Potter or Twilight novel offers
escape of a different and potentially more instructive sort,
liberating us from the confines of our own time, place, and
social milieu, as well as our habitual ways of thinking,
feeling, and looking at the world
Why read literature?

 “instruction and delight”

- in this way, a story, poem, or play can satisfy our desire for
broader experience— including the sorts of experience we
might be unable or unwilling to endure in real life.
Why read literature?

 “instruction and delight”

- we can travel back into the past, experiencing war from the
perspective of a soldier watching his comrade die or of prisoners
suffering in a Nazi labor camp. We can journey into the future or
into universes governed by entirely different rules than our own.
Perhaps we yearn for such knowledge because we can best come
to understand our own identities and outlooks by leaping over
the boundaries that separate us from other selves and worlds.
Why read literature?

 “imagine intensely and comprehensively” and “put

himself in the place of another and of many othe[r]”
people in order “to be greatly good”
- Shelley meant “good” in a moral sense, reasoning that the
ability both to accurately imagine and to truly feel the human
consequences of our actions is the key to ethical behavior
Why read literature?

- In virtually any career you choose, you will need to interact

positively and productively with both coworkers and clients,
and in today’s increasingly globalized world, you will need
to learn to deal effectively and empathetically with people
vastly different from yourself. At the very least, literature
written by people from various backgrounds and depicting
various places, times, experiences, and feelings will give you
some understanding of how others’ lives and worldviews
may differ from your own— or how they may be very much
the same
Why read literature?

- Similarly, our rapidly changing world and economy require

intellectual flexibility, adaptability, and ingenuity, making
ever more essential the human knowledge, general skills, and
habits of mind developed through the study of literature.
Literature explores issues and questions relevant in any walk
of life.
Why read literature?

- Yet rather than offering us neat or comforting solutions and

answers, literature enables us to experience difficult
situations and human conundrums in all their complexity and
to look at them from various points of view.
Why read literature?

- In so doing, it invites us sometimes to question

conventional thinking and sometimes to see its wisdom, even
as it helps us imagine altogether new possibilities
Why read literature?

 “literature awakens us to the richness and complexity of

language”
 our primary tool for engaging with, understanding, and
shaping the world around us.
 As we read more and more, seeing how different writers
use language to help us feel their joy, pain, love, rage, or
laughter, we begin to recognize the vast range of
possibilities for self- expression.
Why study literature?

- By reading and discussing different genres of literature, as

well as works from varied times and places, you may well
come to appreciate and even love works that you might
never have discovered or chosen to read on your own or that
you might have disliked or misunderstood if you did
Why study literature?

- Most important, writing about works of literature and

discussing them with your teachers and other students will
give you practice in analyzing literature in greater depth and
in considering alternative views of both the works
themselves and the situations and problems the works
explore
Why study literature?

- Instead, it emerges from a process that involves trying to

put into words how and why this work had such an effect on
you and, just as important, responding to what others say or
write about it
Why study literature?

- Literature itself is a vast, ongoing, ever- evolving

conversation in which we most fully participate when we
enter into actual conversation with others
Genre of literature
Source

Mays, K.J. (2016). The Norton introduction to literature

(12 ed.). USA: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Fiction

 Stories or narratives about imaginary persons and events

 The word fiction comes from the Latin root fingere ‘to
fashion or form’
 The earliest definitions concern the act of making
something artificial to imitate something else
 In the past two centuries, fiction has become more
narrowly defined as “prose narrative about imaginary
people and events,”
 Fiction refers to prose stories based in the imagination of
authors
 The essence of fiction is narration: the relating or
recounting of a sequence of events or actions
Genres of Prose Fiction by length

 A novel is a work of prose fiction of about forty thousand

words or more. The form arose in the seventeenth and
early eighteenth centuries as prose romances and
adventure tales began to adopt techniques of history and
travel narrative as well as memoir, letters, and biography
Genres of Prose Fiction by length

 A novella is a work of prose fiction of about seventeen

thousand to forty thousand words. The novella form was
especially favored between about 1850 and 1950, largely
because it can be more tightly controlled and concentrated
than a long novel, while focusing on the inner workings of
a character.
Genres of Prose Fiction by length

 A short story is broadly defined as anywhere between one

thousand and twenty thousand words. One expectation of
a short story is that it may be read in a single sitting. The
modern short story developed in the mid-nineteenth
century, in part because of the growing popularity of
magazines.
Genres of Prose Fiction by length

 A short short story, sometimes called “flash fiction” or

“micro- fiction,” is generally not much longer than one
thousand words and sometimes much shorter. There have
always been very short fictions, including parables and
fables, but the short short story is an invention of recent
decades.
Fiction

 Historical fiction, developed by Sir Walter Scott around

1815, comprises prose narratives that present history in
imaginative ways
 Drama stories composed in verse or prose, usually for
theatrical performance, where conflicts and emotion are
expressed through dialogue and action
 Fable is narration demonstrating a useful truth, especially
in which animals speak as humans; legendary,
supernatural tale
Fiction

 Fairy Tale story about fairies or other magical creatures,

usually for children
 Fantasy are fiction with strange or other worldly settings
or characters/fiction which invites suspension or reality
 Folklore the songs, myths and proverbs of a people or
“folk” as handed down by word of mouth
 Science fiction story based on impact of actual, imagined
or potential science, usually set in the future or on other
planets
Fiction

 Tall tale humorous story with blatant exaggerations,

swaggering heroes who do the impossible with
nonchalance
 Legend these are fictitious narratives, usually about origin
Nonfiction

 In contrast with fiction, nonfiction usually refers to

factual prose narrative
 Some major nonfiction genres are history, biography, and
autobiography
 In film, documentaries and “biopics,” or biographical
feature films, similarly attempt to represent real people,
places, and events
Poetry

 Narrative poetry (describes important events in life either real

or imaginary)
 Epic is an extended narrative about heroic exploits often under
supernatural control
 Metrical tale is a narrative which is written in verse and can be
classified either as a ballad or a metrical romance
 Ballad is considered the shortest and simplest. It has a simple
structure and tells of a single incident. These are variations of
these: love ballads, war ballads, sea, humorous, moral historical
or mythical ballads
 Lyric poetry (refers to that kind of poetry meant to be
sung to the accompaniment of a lyre but now, this applies
to any type of poetry that expresses emotions and feelings
of poet. Lyric poetry are usually short, simple and easy to
understand)
Lyric poetry

 Folksongs (awiting bayan) are short poems intended to

be sung. The common theme is love, despair, grief, doubt,
joy, hope and sorrow.
 Sonnets is a lyric poem of 14 lines dealing with an
emotion, a feeling or an idea. There are two types: the
Italian and the Shakespearean
 Elegy is a lyric poem which expresses feelings of grief
and melancholy, and whose theme is death
Lyric poetry

 Ode is a poem of a noble feeling, expressed with dignity,

with no definite number of syllables or definite number of
lines in a stanza
 Psalms (Dalit) is a song praising God or the Virgin Mary
and containing a philosophy of life
 Awit (Song) have measures of 12 syllables
(dodecasyllabic) and slowly sung to the accompaniment of
a guitar or banduria
Lyric poetry

 Corridos (Kurido) have measures of eight syllables

(octosyllabic) and recited to a martial beat
Dramatic poetry

 Comedy comes from the Greek term “komos” meaning

festivity or revelry. This form usually is light and written
with the purpose of amusing and usually has a happy
ending
 Melodrama is used in musical plays with the opera.
Today, this is related to tragedy just as the farce is to
comedy. It arouses immediate and intense emotion and is
usually sad but there is a happy ending for the principal
character
Dramatic poetry

 Tragedy involves the hero struggling mightily against

dynamic forces; he/she meets death or ruin without
success and satisfaction obtained by the protagonist in a
comedy
 Farce is an exaggerated comedy. It seeks to arouse mirth
by laughable lines; situations are to ridiculous to be true;
the characters seem to be caricatures and the motives
undignified and absurd
Dramatic poetry

 Social poems are either purely comic or tragic and it

pictures the life of today. It may aim to bring about
changes in the social conditions
Approaches in literary
criticisms
Source

Guerin, W. et al (2005). A handbook of critical approaches

to literature (5th ed.). UK: Oxford University Press
Historical-biographical approach

 This approach sees a literary work as a reflection of its

author’s life and times or the life and times of the
characters in the work
Moral-philosophical approach

 The basic position of such critics is that the larger function

of literature is to teach morality and to probe philosophical
issues. They would interpret literature within a context of
the philosophical thought of a period or group
Formalism

 The focus of formalist approach is on:

Form, organization and structure
Word choice and language
Multiple meanings
 Considers the work in isolation, disregarding author’s
intent, background, context and anything else outside of
the work itself
Formalism

 For example, a formalist reading of a poem would focus

on its rhythms, rhymes, cadences and structure
 A text according to Formalism is a thing on its own
without the need of external agents. As the name suggests,
Formalism is a scientific, technical mode of understanding
texts which expects a greater degree of mental intelligence
instead of emotional intelligence from the readers
Branches of Formalism

 Russian Formalism was a school of literary criticism in

Russia from 1910 to 1930. Russian Formalism brought the
idea of scientific analysis of poetry.
 New Criticism an American Literary theory in the
20th century. Its philosophy was taken from John Crowe
Ransom’s The New Criticism, 1941. New Criticism talked
about the closed-reading approach.
Mythological and Archetypal
Approaches
 A mythological / archetypal approach to literature assumes
that there is a collection of symbols, images, characters,
and motifs (i.e. archetypes) that evokes basically the same
response in all people
Mythological and Archetypal
Approaches
Examples
 Images
water: the mystery of creation
sun: creative energy
(colors)
red: blood, sacrifice, violent passion; disorder
green: growth
Mythological and Archetypal
Approaches
Examples
 Archetypal motifs or patterns
creation: every mythology is built on some account of
how cosmos, nature and humankind were brought into
existence by some supernatural Being or Beings
Marxist Approach

 Marxist criticism is a type of criticism in which literary

works are viewed as the product of work and whose
practitioners emphasize the role of class and ideology as
they reflect, propagate, and even challenge the prevailing
social order
Marxist Approach

 Rather than viewing texts as repositories for hidden

meanings, Marxist critics view texts as material products
to be understood in broadly historical terms
 In short, literary works are viewed as a product of work
and hence of the realm of production and consumption we
call economics
Psychological Approach

 Psychological critics view works through the lens of

psychology. They look either at the psychological
motivations of the characters or of the authors themselves
 Most frequently, psychological critics apply Freudian
psychology
Psychological Approach

 A Freudian approach often includes pinpointing the

influences of a character's id (the unrestrained, instinctual,
pleasure seeking part of the mind), superego (the part of
the mind that represses the id's impulses and shoves them
back into the unconscious) and the ego (the part of the
mind that controls the id's impulses and releases them in a
healthy manner)
Psychological Approach

 Freudian critics like to point out the sexual implications of

symbols and imagery, since one of Freud's premises was
that all human behavior is motivated by sexuality
 They tend to see concave images, objects with lengths
exceeding their diameters, and certain activities (e.g.,
dancing, riding, and flying) as associated with sexual
pleasure
Feminist Approach

 Feminist criticism is concerned with the impact of gender

on writing and reading. It usually begins with a critique of
patriarchal culture
 It is concerned with the place of female writers in the
canon
Feminist Approach

 Feminists often argue that male fears are portrayed

through female characters
 They may argue that gender determines everything, or just
the opposite: that all gender differences are imposed by
society, and gender determines nothing
Reader Response Approach

 Reader response criticism analyzes the reader's role in the

production of meaning. It lies at the opposite end of the
spectrum from formalistic criticism
 In reader response criticism, the text itself has no meaning
until it is read by a reader. The reader creates the meaning
Reader Response Approach

 This criticism can take into account the strategies

employed by the author to elicit a certain response from
readers.
 It denies the possibility that works are universal (i.e. that
they will always mean more or less the same thing to
readers everywhere).
Reader Response Approach

 Norman Holland argues that "each reader will impose his

or her 'identity theme' on the text, to a large extent
recreating that text in the reader's image.“
 Therefore, we can understand someone's reading as a
function of personal identity.
Structuralist Approach

 Structuralism is a theory of humankind in which all

elements of human culture, including literature, are
thought to be parts of a system of signs
 Structuralists view literature as a system of signs, and they
seek to make the organizational rules and codes--which
they believe govern the form and content of all literature--
explicit
Structuralist Approach

 Structuralism could be defined as the project of giving

literary criticism the theoretical rigor of a science of
language: the attempt to rethink everything through once
again in terms of linguistics.
Deconstructionist Approach

 Deconstruction involves the close reading of texts in order

to demonstrate that any given text has irreconcilably
contradictory meanings, rather than being a unified,
logical whole.
Deconstructionist Approach

 As J. Hillis Miller, the preeminent American

deconstructor, has explained in an essay entitled "Stevens'
Rock and Criticism as Cure" (1976), "Deconstruction is
not a dismantling of the structure of a text, but a
demonstration that it has already dismantled itself. Its
apparently solid ground is no rock but thin air."
Deconstructionist Approach

 This approach assumes that language does not refer to any

external reality. It asserts multiple, conflicting
interpretations of one text. It supports its interpretations
based on the political or social implications of language
rather than on the author’s intention.
Assignment

 Formulate a personal view on the roles of literature, its

essence and functions by creating 1-2 minute recorded
video

Criteria Points
Content/Understanding of the topic 40
Organization 20
Creativity 20
Presentation/Visual effects/Technical (audio) 20
Total 100
Assignment

 Develop conceptual-models differentiating the varied

types of literary genres in the country and approaches in
literary criticism

Criteria Points
Content/Understanding of the topic 50
Organization 30
Creativity 20
Total 100
Assignment

 Determine the uniqueness of each literary genre and

approaches in literary criticism in a form of list/graphs as
emphasized in a 1-2 minute recorded video

Criteria Points
Content/Understanding of the topic 40
Organization 20
Creativity 20
Presentation/Visual effects/Technical (audio) 20
Total 100
 Assignment
Due date: June 3, 2021
End