A Man Falls To His Death

By Dr Cirilo Bautista
Blood is nothing. Space is all. Is.
A simple diagram illustrates this:
where A is the tenth floor of steel and glass (He was on
the noon shift forging the dream to a reality fine mean
could slumber in, or whores, in antechamber, touch their bone)
and B the level earth (Above the clogged engine
a shadow traced the lines on his foot, while shoot
his brain with firelights the money did). Put
down an imaginary circle around the vertical.
Compute the square of guilt against an integral
his age built when he was young: wrong,
axiomatic: the sum stands thus: Along
the curve X (none noticed the leap; what they saw
was the red imprint) by which we know
the nothing particular, the momentum

Dr. Cirilo F. Bautista's Online Publications

Scope Note: This webliography consists of articles, collected/selected works, novels,
poems and short stories written by Dr. Cirilo F. Bautista which are accessible on the
net.

Cirilo F. Bautista, poet, fictionist, critic, and writer of nonfiction, was born in 1941.
He received his degrees in AB Literature from the University of Santo Tomas (magna
cum laude, 1963), MA Literature from St. Louis University, Baguio City (magna cum
laude, 1968), and Doctor of Arts in Language and Literature from De La Salle
University-Manila (1990). He received a fellowship to attend the International
Writing Program at the University of Iowa (1968-1969) and was awarded an honorary
degree--the only Filipino to have been so honored there.

He is a co-founding member of the Philippine Literary Arts Council (PLAC) and a

member of the Manila Critics Circle, Philippine Center of International PEN and the
Philippine Writers Academy . His awards include the Palanca, Free Press, National
Book Award from the Manila Critics Circle, Gawad Balagtas, the Pablo Ro man Prize
for the Novel, and the highest accolades from the City of Manila, Quezon City, and
Iligan City. Bautista was hailed in 1993 as Makata ng Taon by the Komisyon ng mga
Wika ng Pilipinas , and t he last part of his epic trilogy The Trilogy of Saint Lazarus ,
entitled Sunlight on Broken Stones , won the Centennial Prize for the epic in 1998.

Bautista's works include Boneyard Breaking , Sugat ng Salita , The Archipelago ,

Telex Moon , Summer Suns , Charts , The Cave and Other Poems , Kirot ng Kataga ,
and Bullets and Roses: The Poetry of Amado V. Hernandez . His novel Galaw ng
Asoge was published by UST Press in 2004. In addition to being a Professor of
Literature in DLSU-Manila, Bautista is also a columnist and literary editor of the
Philippine Panorama.
Source:http://www.panitikan.com.ph/authors/b/cfbautista.htm
A Man Falls to His Death exemplifies how media, science, mass communication and language
illustrates and explains life (and death for that matter). Despite the different factors that
surrounded the characters' death (suicide), the form that the persona used was impersonal and
detached. Reality, having various dimensions as interpreted by different academic and social
constructs, has clouded an emotional understanding of a man's decision to end his life.

If you would notice: the use of geometric formulas to illustrate the fall, including Berger's formula
for optics to scientifically explain the impact, demagnifies the man's motivation as parenthesized
in the text.

It is a sad fact, that whenever we hear news on things such as these, the technicality that was
called for overpowers the need to remember and respect the life that was.

Indeed, BLOOD IS NOTHING SPACE IS ALL.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

The purpose for writing a critique is to evaluate somebody's work (a

book, an essay, a movie, a painting...) in order to increase the reader's
understanding of it. A critical analysis is subjective writing because it
expresses the writer's opinion or evaluation of a text. Analysis means
to break down and study the parts. Writing a critical paper requires
two steps: critical reading and critical writing.

Critical reading:

1. Identify the author's thesis and purpose

2. Analyze the structure of the passage by identifying all main ideas
3. Consult a dictionary or encyclopedia to understand material that is
unfamiliar to you
4. Make an outline of the work or write a description of it
5. Write a summary of the work
6. Determine the purpose which could be

1. To inform with factual material

2. To persuade with appeal to reason or emotions
3. To entertain (to affect people's emotions)

7. Evaluate the means by which the author has accomplished his purpose

 If the purpose is to inform, has the material been presented clearly,

accurately, with order and coherence?
 If the purpose is to persuade, look for evidence, logical reasoning,
 contrary evidence
 If the purpose was to entertain, determine how emotions are affected:
does it make you laugh, cry, angry? Why did it affect you?

Consider the following questions: How is the material organized? Who

is the intended audience? What are the writer's assumptions about the
audience? What kind of language and imagery does the author use?

SAMPLE OUTLINE FOR CRITICAL

ESSAY
After the passage under analysis has been carefully studied, the
critique can be drafted using this sample outline.

 I. Background information to help your readers understand the nature of

the work

o A. Information about the work

 1. Title
 2. Author
 3. Publication information
 4. Statement of topic and purpose

o B. Thesis statement indicating writer's main reaction to the work

 II. Summary or description of the work

 III. Interpretation and/or evaluation
o A. Discussion of the work's organization
o B. Discussion of the work's style
o C. Effectiveness
o D. Discussion of the topic's treatment
o E. Discussion of appeal to a particular audience

Remember:

Avoid introducing your ideas by stating "I think" or "in my opinion."

Keep the focus on the subject of your analysis, not on yourself.
Identifying your opinions weakens them.

Always introduce the work. Do not assume that because your reader
knows what you are writing about, you do not need to mention the
work's title.

Other questions to consider: Is there a controversy surrounding either

 the passage or the subject which it concerns?

What about the subject matter is of current interest?

What is the overall value of the passage?

What are its strengths and weaknesses?

Support your thesis with detailed evidence from the text examined. Do
not forget to document quotes and paraphrases.

Remember that the purpose of a critical analysis is not merely to

inform, but also to evaluate the worth, utility, excellence, distinction,
truth, validity, beauty, or goodness of something.

Even though as a writer you set the standards, you should be open-
minded, well informed, and fair. You can express your opinions, but
you should also back them up with evidence.

Your review should provide information, interpretation, and

evaluation. The information will help your reader understand the
nature of the work under analysis. The interpretation will explain the
meaning of the work, therefore requiring your correct understanding
of it. The evaluation will discuss your opinions of the work and present
valid justification for them.

Genres of Literature
Genres of literature are important to learn about. The two main categories separating
the different genres of literature are fiction and nonfiction. There are several genres of
literature that fall under the nonfiction category. Nonfiction sits in direct opposition to
fiction. Examples from both the fiction and nonfiction genres of literature are
explained in detail below. This detailed genres of literature list is a great resource to
share with any scholars.

Types of Nonfiction:

Narrative Nonfiction is information based on fact that is presented in a format which

tells a story.
Essays are a short literary composition that reflects the author’s outlook or point. A
short literary composition on a particular theme or subject, usually in prose and
generally analytic, speculative, or interpretative.

A Biography is a written account of another person’s life.

An Autobiography gives the history of a person’s life, written or told by that person.
Often written in Narrative form of their person’s life.

Speech is the faculty or power of speaking; oral communication; ability to express

one’s thoughts and emotions by speech, sounds, and gesture. Generally delivered in
the form of an address or discourse.

Finally there is the general genre of Nonfiction. This is Informational text dealing
with an actual, real-life subject. This genre of literature offers opinions or conjectures
on facts and reality. This includes biographies, history, essays, speech, and narrative
non fiction. Nonfiction opposes fiction and is distinguished from those fiction genres
of literature like poetry and drama which is the next section we will discuss.

Genres of Fiction:

Drama is the genre of literature that’s subject for compositions is dramatic art in the
way it is represented. This genre is stories composed in verse or prose, usually for
theatrical performance, where conflicts and emotion are expressed through dialogue
and action.

Poetry is verse and rhythmic writing with imagery that evokes an emotional response
from the reader. The art of poetry is rhythmical in composition, written or spoken.
This genre of literature is for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, or elevated
thoughts.

Fantasy is the forming of mental images with strange or other worldly settings or
characters; fiction which invites suspension of reality.
Humor is the faculty of perceiving what is amusing or comical. Fiction full of fun,
fancy, and excitement which meant to entertain. This genre of literature can actually
be seen and contained within all genres.

A Fable is a story about supernatural or extraordinary people Usually in the form of

narration that demonstrates a useful truth. In Fables, animals often speak as humans
that are legendary and supernatural tales.

Fairy Tales or wonder tales are a kind of folktale or fable. Sometimes the stories are
about fairies or other magical creatures, usually for children.

Science Fiction is a story based on impact of potential science, either actual or

imagined. Science fiction is one of the genres of literature that is set in the future or
on other planets.

Short Story is fiction of such briefness that is not able to support any subplots.

Realistic Fiction is a story that can actually happen and is true to real life.

Folklore are songs, stories, myths, and proverbs of a person of “folk” that was handed
down by word of mouth. Folklore is a genre of literature that is widely held, but false
and based on unsubstantiated beliefs.

Historical Fiction is a story with fictional characters and events in a historical setting.

Horror is an overwhelming and painful feeling caused by literature that is frightfully

shocking, terrifying, or revolting. Fiction in which events evoke a feeling of dread in
both the characters and the reader.

A Tall Tale is a humorous story with blatant exaggerations, swaggering heroes who
do the impossible with an here of nonchalance.

Legend is a story that sometimes of a national or folk hero. Legend is based on fact
but also includes imaginative material.
Mystery is a genre of fiction that deals with the solution of a crime or the unraveling
of secrets. Anything that is kept secret or remains unexplained or unknown.

Mythology is a type of legend or traditional narrative. This is often based in part on

historical events, that reveals human behavior and natural phenomena by its
symbolism; often pertaining to the actions of the gods. A body of myths, as that of a
particular people or that relating to a particular person.

Fiction in Verse is full-length novels with plot, subplots, themes, with major and
minor characters. Fiction of verse is one of thegenres of literature in which the
narrative is usually presented in blank verse form.

The genre of Fiction can be defined as narrative literary works whose content is
produced by the imagination and is not necessarily based on fact. In fiction something
is feigned, invented, or imagined; a made-up story.

The Oxford English Dictionary is a great place to consult for any further definitions of
the different genres of literature explained here.

Historical criticism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Historical criticism, also known as the historical-critical method or higher

criticism, is a branch of literary criticism that investigates the origins of ancient texts
in order to understand "the world behind the text".[1] While often discussed in terms
of Jewish and Christian writings from ancient times, historical criticism has also been
applied to other religious writings from various parts of the world and periods of
history.
The primary goal of historical criticism is to discover the text's primitive or original
meaning in its original historical context and its literal sense or sensus literalis
historicus. The secondary goal seeks to establish a reconstruction of the historical
situation of the author and recipients of the text. This may be accomplished by
reconstructing the true nature of the events which the text describes. An ancient text
may also serve as a document, record or source for reconstructing the ancient past
which may also serve as a chief interest to the historical critic. In regard to Semitic
biblical interpretation, the historical critic would be able to interpret the literature of
Israel as well as the history of Israel.[2]
In 18th century Biblical criticism, the term "higher criticism" was commonly used in
mainstream scholarship[3] in contrast with "lower criticism". In the 21st century,
historical criticism is the more commonly used term for higher criticism, while textual
criticism is more common than the loose expression "lower criticism".[4]
Historical criticism began in the 17th century and gained popular recognition in the
19th and 20th centuries. The perspective of the early historical critic was rooted
in Protestant reformation ideology, inasmuch as their approach to biblical studies was
free from the influence of traditional interpretation.[5] Where historical investigation
was unavailable, historical criticism rested on philosophical and theological
interpretation. With each passing century, historical criticism became refined into
various methodologies used today:source criticism, form criticism, redaction
criticism, tradition criticism, canonical criticism, and related methodologies.[2]
What is Historical Criticism?
Historical criticism (also known as historicism or higher criticism) refers to the study
of literary texts, particularly ancient texts and especially the Bible, in terms of their
historical origins and development within those contexts. It is an umbrella term
which describes the dominant method of study used by biblical scholars today.
Technically, this term refers specifically to questions about the historical character of
a work, but, as it is impossible to do this without studying the literary character of a
work, this article will also address questions of literary criticism as they relate to
historical criticism and the Bible.
Historical criticism is not criticism in the sense of disapproval or the examination of
faults and mistakes, but instead is an analysis of the text in the hope of better
understanding it.

What is the goal of Historical Criticism?

Historical criticism seeks greater understanding of biblical texts by analyzing the
historical and social contexts in which they developed. The goal of historical
criticism, traditionally, has been to try to understand the text’s meaning in its original
context and to answer questions about the text, such as:
* Who wrote it?
* When was it written?
* What else what happening at the time of its writing?
* How did it come to be in the form we have it today?
* What did it mean to the people who first read or heard it?
Historical criticism has also often sought answers to the ever-elusive question of what
is called “authorial intent”: What did the author intend for this text to mean in his or
her time and place?

Methods of Historical Criticism

Scholars use a variety of methods in attempting to answer these questions, all of
which draw on other fields of biblical and historical scholarship, such as linguistics
and archaeology.
Three of the most widely used methods are:
1. Source criticism. Source criticism questions whether texts came from a singular source,
author, or historical context, and seeks to untangle the sources present within any given
text.For example, source criticism reads the gospel of Matthew with an eye towards what
material came from other gospels or from Matthew’s own tradition. The gospel of Matthew
shares some material with the gospel of Mark, and other material with the gospel of Luke; a
source critic would be interested in which material is shared and how.

2. Form criticism. Form criticism seeks to understand the claims of a text by analyzing its
linguistic patterns.For example, form criticism reads the Gospel of Matthew with an eye
towards how certain words and expressions, like “the kingdom of heaven,” reflect the broader
claims of the text.

3. Redaction criticism. Redaction criticism analyzes how redactors (i.e., editors) wove together
various traditions into one whole.For example, redaction criticism reads the Gospel of
Matthew with an eye toward how Matthew changes or uses material from other traditions
(like the gospels of Mark and Luke) to fit the text’s broader claims.

The History of Historical Criticism

Historical criticism has roots in both the Protestant Reformation and the European
Enlightenment. Prior to this era, there was a tradition of reading biblical texts
allegorically: every part of the story was symbolic. For some texts in the Bible, this
was certainly the case — like the parables of Jesus, where a lost sheep was symbolic
of a sinner whom God was seeking. Allegorical readers, however, insisted on this
kind of symbolism in all stories — suggesting, for example, that the two coins that the
Samaritan gives to the innkeeper in Luke 15 stood for the two sacraments of baptism
and communion. The Protestant Reformation brought back an attention to the literal
or “plain” meaning of the text, aided by new tools for and interest in studying the
Bible in its original languages.
The Enlightenment, for its part, brought with it the questioning of traditional beliefs
and a new focus on human reason and scientific objectivity, to which theological and
biblical study was now no longer immune. People started to question more
vigorously the relationship between what the words of the Bible said and the actual
historical events it was supposed to describe. For example: Did Moses really write
the Pentateuch (first five books of the Bible)? Were prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah
writing before or after the events they describe? Was the Resurrection an actual
historical event? Scholars around the world explored these questions, but perhaps
nowhere with greater gusto or to greater effect than in Germany.
Nineteenth century German scholars such as W. M. L. de Wette and Julius Wellhausen
tackled the problem of Pentateuch authorship by developing the Documentary
Hypothesis using a source-critical method (see above). They suggested that rather
than one author (Moses), the Pentateuch was composed of sources from at least four
different authors or traditions! This is just one example of the early work done by
biblical scholars using historical criticism.
However, this work grew to be highly controversial. By applying historical and
literary principles to the study of the Bible, these scholars and others presupposed that
the Bible is made up, at least in part, of human documents whose historical reality can
be questioned and determined. For some Christians, this approach was dangerous or
harmful to the authority of scripture as the authoritative Word of God, especially since
it negated some long-held traditions about biblical authorship (such as Moses’
authorship of the Pentateuch).
At the turn of the 20th century, in the face of the perceived threat of historical
criticism, some Protestant Christians in the United States recommitted themselves to
the “fundamentals” of the Christian faith (including the inerrancy of the Bible). These
Christians, along with many Roman Catholics, rejected historical criticism as a
legitimate form of biblical scholarship. Modernist Christians, on the other hand,
embraced historical criticism. Protestant theologians from traditions that embraced
this new form of biblical scholarship have wrestled with its implications for the
authority of scripture ever since.
Other important names in the development of historical criticism include: Karl Graf,
Hermann Gunkel, Ernst Troeltsch, Charles A. Briggs, and Rudolf Bultmann. A well-
known off-shoot of historical criticism is the “quest for the historical Jesus.”
Important early scholars in that field included D.F. Strauss, Adolf Von Harnack, and
William Wrede.

The Influence of Historical Criticism

The rise of historical criticism in biblical scholarship was one of the touchpoints in the
Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy in the United States in the early 20th century.
American Christianity is in many ways still divided between the fundamentalists,
who rejected historical criticism, and the modernists (who primarily make up mainline
Protestantism) who embraced it. However, over the past century, many of those in
conservative traditions that initially rejected the historical-critical method (such as
Roman Catholics) have come to accept, at least in part, its conclusions and
methodology as useful for illuminating the historical context of the Bible and some of
its texts. Historical criticism remains the predominant method used by biblical
scholars today.
 Biographical Criticism: This approach “begins with the simple but central
insight that literature is written by actual people and that understanding an
author’s life can help readers more thoroughly comprehend the work.” Hence, it
often affords a practical method by which readers can better understand a text.
However, a biographical critic must be careful not to take the biographical facts
of a writer’s life too far in criticizing the works of that writer: the biographical
critic “focuses on explicating the literary work by using the insight provided by
knowledge of the author’s life.... [B]iographical data should amplify the meaning
of the text, not drown it out with irrelevant material.”


o Historical Criticism: This approach “seeks to understand a literary work by

investigating the social, cultural, and intellectual context that produced it—a
context that necessarily includes the artist’s biography and milieu.” A key goal
for historical critics is to understand the effect of a literary work upon its original
readers.

Biographical criticism is a form of Literary criticism which analyzes a writer's

biography to show the relationship between the author's life and their works of
literature.[2][3] Biographical criticism is often associated with Historical-
Biographical criticism,[4] a critical method that "sees a literary work chiefly, if not
exclusively, as a reflection of its author's life and times".[5]
This longstanding critical method dates back at least to the Renaissance period,[6] and
was employed extensively by Samuel Johnson in hisLives of the Poets (1779–81).[7]
Like any critical methodology, biographical criticism can be used with discretion and
insight or employed as a superficial shortcut to understanding the literary work on its
own terms through such strategies as Formalism. Hence 19th century biographical
criticism came under disapproval by the so-called New Critics of the 1920s, who
coined the term "biographical fallacy"[8][9] to describe criticism that neglected the
imaginative genesis of literature.
Notwithstanding this critique, biographical criticism remained a significant mode of
literary inquiry throughout the 20th century, particularly in studies of Charles
Dickens and F. Scott Fitzgerald, among others. The method continues to be employed
in the study of such authors as John Steinbeck,[10] Walt Whitman[11] and William
Shakespeare.[12]