GEC 13

LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

MARIA GLORIA R. BECO-NADA

Author/Compiler

Southern Luzon State University

College of Arts and Sciences

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 1

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
2020
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Lecture 1 Introduction
1. Definitions of Literature
3
2. Standards of a good literature
3. What is Philippine Literature?
4. Reasons for Studying Philippine Literature
Lecture 2 Theories in Literature
1. What is literary criticism?
8
2. Theories in Literature
3. Sample Reading
The Female Protagonists: An Analysis on the Portrayal Of Women in Popular Literature

Lecture 3 Poetry and Its Elements

1. Definition of Poetry
27
2. Five Things to Remember about
Poetry.
3. How to Read Poetry
4. Types of Poetry
Lyric Poetry
Narrative Poetry
Dramatic Poetry
5. Elements of Poetry
Content/Subject
Theme
Mood/Tone
Imagery
Symbols
Sound effect devices
Persona
Speaker
Shape and Form
Figurative Languages
Stanza
Rhythm
Foot
Meter
Lecture 4 Background of Poetry in the Philippines
1. Poetry in the Philippines
39
2. Poetry Analysis
3. Poems for Reading and Analysis
Activity and Assessment 55

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 2

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
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LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

Lecture 1
Introduction

Overview:

The first question that a student in Literature class will encounter from his
teacher is, what is Literature? Usually, as students hear the question, they are
dumbfounded as if it is their first time to encounter the word. They are not aware
that they have been dealing with literature since they started to study. What is
really the meaning of literature? It is a question that seems to be too difficult to
answer. But, in fact it is as easy as how we breathe air.

Objectives:
By the end of the lecture, students should have:

1. Defined Literature
2. Understood the functions and characteristics of literature
3. Determined what to consider in studying literature.
4. Learned the reasons for studying Philippine literature.

Scope of Lecture 1

1. Definitions of Literature
2. Standards of a good literature
3. What is Philippine Literature?
4. Reasons for Studying Philippine Literature
________________________________________________________________
Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people
and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary.
-Boris Pasternak

DEFINITIONS OF LITERATURE

The simplest definition of literature can be traced from the word itself. Every
age has its theoretical definitions of the nature of literature and its theorized
principles on which critical approaches to the analysis of literature are premised.
(Selden, Widdowson,&Brooker, 2005) According to Baritugo, et al. (2004) as
cited by Ang (2012), Literature comes from the French phrase “belles-letters”
which means beautiful writing. The word literature is derived from the Latin term
litera which means letter. (Kahayon, 2009, p. 1) Also, Webster dictionary defines
literature as “…the total preserved writings belonging to a given language or
people” or “…the class or the total writings or a given period or country.”
Meanwhile, 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. (Sialongo, et al.,2007, p.1) In addition, Estolas, Payno and
Javier (2011) discussed that in its broadest sense, literature is everything oral and
written. The medium of literature is language. The words are combined into
sentences to express ideas, thoughts, feelings, desires, and values.
The study of literature is like an endless journey to discover new things
around us. It is said to be life but it is more than just life as it is usually defined. All

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 3

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
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LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

aspects of life can be a source of Literature. Literature places reality in a capsule

which anyone can buy in a drugstore. Figuratively, that is what literature does.
In Del Castillo and Medina’s definition “true literature is a faithful reproduction
of man’s life executed in an artistic pattern.” Is there really such true literature?
How will we know that it is true literature? It will only become true literature once it
faithfully imitates what is in reality. Then, it is up to the writer to use any genre of
literature to create his own literary work.
Every time you read a short story, have you ever pondered how the writer
was able to write a plausible story? It leads you to ask yourself if the story is real
or not because whatever ideas and philosophies which are included in a story
based on one’s or others’ personal experiences and observations. Aside from
experience, imaginations, creativity and general knowledge are also important
source in literature. Ang (2012) said that literature offers us an experience in
which we should participate as we read and test what we read by our own
experience. Then, according to Baytan (2014), Literature is about self -- its
search for meaning, its discoveries about itself and the world, its possibilities for
greatness. While examining the techniques and themes of the selections, the
students are also exploring a world similar to their own and interacting with
characters whose lives, inner conflicts and aspirations may resonate with
theirs…It is about the nature of existence. Furthermore, Carpio (2006) explains
that in man’s striving for truth, literature provides avenues for unlocking certain
treasure troves to human expression and creative urges. As shades of feelings
and passions are acutely delineated, man soars to gothic heights.

It only means that as people engage in literature, they are able to have
broader understanding about life. Also, it opens their minds to many realizations
that aid them throughout their life.

STANDARDS OF A GOOD LITERATURE

According to Garcia (1993) as cited by Ang (2012), the ability to judge of

literature is based on the application of certain recognizable standards of good
literature. Great literature is distinguishable of the following qualities.

1. Artistry
Literature has a natural aesthetic appeal depending on the genre. As one reads a poem
or a story, there will be an immediate reaction to the literary work. The reaction is based on
how it appeals to one’s aesthetic standard. A good literary work should have innate artistry.
Ang said, literature has an aesthetic appeal and thus possesses a sense of beauty.

2. Intellectual Value -
Literature is not only intended for entertainment. It also confers intellectual value. A good
literary work gives intellectual value in order to help readers to be critical thinkers. According
to Sialongo et al. (2007), literature stimulates critical thinking that enriches mental processes
of abstract and reasoning, making man realize the fundamental truths of life and its nature.

3. Suggestiveness
This is the quality associated with the emotional power of literature , such that it should
move us deeply and stir our creative imagination, giving and evoking vision above and
beyond the plane of ordinary life and experience. (Ang, 2012, p. 2) A great literature should
be able to fire the imagination of the the readers. As a form of entertainment, readers will
enjoy more their reading experience as they are able to vividly create the images in their
mind.

4. Spiritual Value

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 4

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
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LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

According to Ahmed (2017), literature is also a tool for the foundation of religion. With
literature, various religions in the world were able to spread their teachings. Aside from that,
Ahmed also mentioned that literature explains human values. A good literature elevates the
spirit by bringing out moral values which makes us better persons - this capacity to inspire is
part of the spiritual value of literature. (Ang, 2012, p. 2)

5. Permanence
A great work of literature endures - it can be read again and again as each reading gives
fresh delight and new insights and open new worlds of meaning and experience. (Ang, 2012,
p. 2) This kind of permanence is how the literary work will sustain the interest of the readers.
A good literary work should be fascinating, exciting, and captivating. Readers should
discover more, the moment they read it again.

6. Universality
A good literature should have passed the test of time. This refers to literary works that
have been handed down from one generation to another but they are still being read and
enjoyed. Only those literary that already achieve universality can be called “classic” Ang
(2012) said that great literature is timeless and timely - forever relevant in terms of its theme
and conditions.

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. (Sialongo, 2007, p. 2) A good literature should posses a unique style in the
manner of presentation. The author should be creative enough to put his ideas into words. It
is the main reason why there are literary works that are still being read. The style of the
author should imprint to the readers that will make them cling to the literary work.

WHAT IS PHILIPPINE LITERATURE?

Del Castillo and Medina (2002) discussed in their book that literature is the
product of a particular people, fashioned according to their own aesthetic ideals.
It may mirror the life of a group.
Philippine literature refers to the various unwritten and written works by
Filipinos. Those works reveal the lives of Filipinos from ancient times to the
present. It also shows the diversity of Philippine culture. Furthermore, Philippine
literature is as rich as other countries’ literature because of the variety of literary
works that have been written through the years. According to Ramallosa (2000),
the Literatures of the Philippines of Filipino literature refers to the oral or written
expression of the feelings and emotions, thoughts and ideas or our people, the
facts of their daily life, their social practices and religious beliefs. It also refers to
all forms of literary made by the native of the island - ancient or modern, Muslim
or Christian - of any region or ethnic group, in the lowland or in the highland, in
the dialect or any foreign tongue. Ordonez (2001) as cited by Ang (2012) said that
today Philippine literature may be classified into: the residual, a good part of
which is oral and regional, but remaining in the margins simply because the
center of writing and publishing is in Metro Manila. Also, it was discussed that the
dominant language, largely in English and Tagalog-based Filipino and the
emergent, produced by those in the periphery - the marginalized sectors,
including workers, peasants, urban poor, women, gays, lesbians and ethnic
groups.
Lastly, in Philippine literature we find literary works which reveal to us that the
Filipino has a passion for the good, the true and the beautiful. (Alcantara,
Cabanilla, & Casambre, 2000)

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 5

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
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LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

REASONS FOR STUDYING PHILIPPINE LITERATURE

In Philippine literature class, as students are asked who is their favorite

Filipino author? They can enumerate many foreign authors but can not hardly
give a single Filipino author. It is similar to how students know the names of
foreign epic heroes or Greek and Roman gods and goddesses. It is a simple
example but it has a serious effect to them. The lesser students are exposed to
Philippine literature the more they will not embrace their own cultural roots. Their
point of view about Filipinos and their world may no longer be in the perspective
of being a Filipino. In fact, De Leon (2015) discussed that the moment we began
to view ourselves through Western eyes, what we held sacred suddenly became
worthless, our virtues turned into vices, and our strengths began to be seen as
weaknesses. Anything indigenous became a source of embarrassment and
uneasiness.

In the discussion of Cruz (1984), he said, before anything else, we Filipinos

should liberate ourselves from the bondage our cultural colonialism by knowing,
understanding and appreciating our own literature first before any foreign
literature. We have our own literature, not only in one but in three and more
languages. It is rich and its richness it can stand up to the best of the world. So,
why should we study literature?

1. To know ourselves, our heritage, and the genius of our race as a people
distinct from others;
2. To identify the Filipino major writers who contributed to the development of the
literatures of the Philippines;
3. To read, discuss and interpret selected literary pieces from the different
regions of our country and relate them to our contemporary life;
4. To show awareness of the varied subjects ans themes in which the Filipino
writers have reflected Philippine life;
5. To discern the moral, philosophical, social, and artistic values of the literatures
written by our own writers;
6. To cultivate a continuing appreciation of the literatures of our country and take
pride in what is our own.

Meanwhile, Kahayon and Zulueta (2009) discussed that we study literature

so that we can better appreciate our literary heritage. We cannot appreciate
something that we do not understand. Through a study of our literature, we can
trace the rich heritage of ideas handed down to us from our forefathers. Then, we
understand ourselves better and take pride in being a Filipino. Like other races of
the world, we need to understand that we have a great and noble tradition which
can serve as the means to assimilate other cultures. Through such a study, we
will realize our literary limitations conditioned by certain historical factors and we
can take steps to overcome them. Above all, as Filipinos, who truly love and take
pride in our own culture, we have to manifest our deep concern for our own
literature and this we can do by studying the literature of our country.

As a whole, the study of Philippine Literature will help students to reaffirm

their cultural identity. Sialongo et al. (2007) said, literature is a product of a
particular culture that concretizes man’s array of values, emotions, actions, and
ideas.

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 6

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
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LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

References:

Ahmed, A. (2017). Literature and Its Influence to Human Life. National Conference Cum
Workshop on Recent Trends in Technical Language and Communication.
Alcantara, R. D., J. Q. Cabanilla, & A. J. Casambre. (2000). Introduction to World Literature: An
Adventure in Human
Experience. Quezon City:Katha Publishing Co., Inc.
Ang, J. G. ed. (2012). Literature 101. Intramuros, Manila: Mindshapers Co. Inc.
Baytan, R. ed. (2014). Lit Matters: A Manual for Teaching Philippine Literature. Pasig City: Anvil
Publishing Inc.
Carpio, R. ed. (2006). Crisscrossing Through Afro-Asian Literature. Pasig City: Anvil Publishing
Inc.
Cruz, I. (1984). Beyond Futility: The Filipino as Critic. University of Michigan: New Day Publishers.
Estolas, J., C. Javier,& N. Payno.(2011). Introduction to Humanities.Mandaluyong City: National
Book Store.
De Leon, Felipe (2015). “Defining the Filipino Through the Arts,” in journals.upd.edu.ph/index.
php/phr/ article/ download/4737/4273.
Del Castillo, T. and B. S. Medina, Jr. (2002). Philippine Literature From Ancient Times to the
Present. Caloocan City: Philippine Graphic Arts, Inc.
Kahayon, A. and C. A. Zulueta. (2009). Philippine Literature Through the Years. Mandaluyong
City: National Book Store.
Ramallosa, G. (2000). The Literatures of the Philippines. Lucena City: Enverga University Press.
Selden, R., P. Widdowson,& P. Brooker. (2005). A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary
Theory. 5th ed. Great Britain: Pearson Education Limited.
Sialongo, E. et al. (2007). Literatures of the World. Manila: REX Book Store, Inc.

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 7

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
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LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

Lecture 2
Theories in Literature

Overview:
Literary theory is substantial in the study of literature. Readers will able to
have in-depth understanding about the literary text as they apply certain theory.
Also, knowledge in literary theories will broaden the perspective of the readers in
analyzing a literary text.
In this lesson, students will able to learn about different literary theories as
well as their application. There is also a sample reading text that will guide them
how to do literary criticism.

Objectives:
By the end of the lecture, students should have:

1. Defined literary theory and literary criticism

2. Learned the different theories in literature.
3. Understood the functions of literary theories in the study of literature

Scope of Lecture 2:

4. What is literary criticism?

5. Theories in Literature
6. Sample Reading
The Female Protagonists: An Analysis on the Portrayal Of Women
in Popular Literature

Theory can help us learn ourselves and our world in valuable new ways, ways that can influence how we educate our children,
both as parents and teachers; how we view television, from the nightly news to situation comedies; how we behave as voters and
consumers; how we react to other with whom we do not agree on social, religious, and political issues; and how can we recognize
and deal with our own motives, fears and desires.
- Lois Tyson

LITERARY THEORY

Critical theory or literary theory and criticism should always be part in the
study of literature. What will be the possible effect of studying literature and
ignoring literary theory in understanding a literary text? According to Tyson
(2006), the interpretations of literature we produce before we study critical theory
may seem completely personal or natural, but they are based on the beliefs --
beliefs about literature, about education, about language, about selfhood -- that
permeate our culture and that we therefore take for granted.

Critical theory, in fact, long pre-dates the literary criticism of individual works.
The earliest work of theory was Aristotle's Poetics, which, in spite of its title, is
about the nature of literature itself: Aristotle offers famous definitions of tragedy,
insists that literature is about character, and that character is revealed through
action, and he tries to identify the required stages in the progress of a plot.
Aristotle was also the first critic to develop a 'reader-centred' approach to
literature, since his consideration of drama tried to describe how it affected the
audience. (Barry, 2002, p. 23) Then, according to Holman (1992), the first
Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 8
Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
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LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

important critical treatise, the Poetics (4th century BC), has proved to be the most
influential.

Below is Peter Barry’s discussion about critical theory from his book
Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory.

Some Recurrent Ideas in Critical Theory

These different approaches each have their separate traditions and histories,
but several ideas are recurrent in critical theory and seem to form what might be
regarded as its common bedrock. Hence, it makes some sense to speak of
'theory' as if it were a single entity with a set of underlying beliefs, as long as we
are aware that doing so is a simplification.

Some of these recurrent underlying ideas of theory are listed below.

1. Many of the notions which we would usually regard as the basic 'givens' of our
existence (including our gender identity, our individual selfhood, and the notion of
literature itself) are actually fluid and unstable things, rather than fixed and
reliable essences. Instead of being solidly 'there' in the real world of fact and
experience, they are 'socially constructed', that is, dependent on social and
political forces and on shifting ways of seeing and thinking. In philosophical terms,
all these are contingent categories (denoting a status which is temporary,
provisional, 'circumstance-dependent') rather than absolute ones (that is, fixed,
immutable, etc.). Hence, no overarching fixed 'truths' can ever be established.
The results of all forms of intellectual enquiry are provisional only. There is no
such thing as a fixed and reliable truth (except for the statement that this is so,
presumably). The position on these matters which theory attacks is often referred
to, in a kind of shorthand, as essentialism, while many of the theories discussed
in this book would describe themselves as anti-essentialist.

2. Theorists generally believe that all thinking and investigation is necessarily

affected and largely determined by prior ideological commitment. The notion of
disinterested enquiry is therefore untenable: none of us, they would argue, is
capable of standing back from the scales and weighing things up dispassionately:
rather, all investigators have a thumb on one side or other of the scales. Every
practical procedure (for instance, in literary criticism) presupposes a theoretical
perspective of some kind. To deny, this is simply to try to place our own
theoretical position beyond scrutiny as something which is 'commonsense' or
'simply given'. This contention is problematical, of course, and is usually only
made explicit as a counter to specific arguments put forward by opponents. The
problem with this view is that it tends to discredit one's own project along with all
the rest, introducing a relativism which disables argument and cuts the ground
from under any kind of commitment.

3. Language itself conditions, limits, and predetermines what we see. Thus, all
reality is constructed through language, so that nothing is simply 'there' in an
unproblematical way - everything is a linguistic/ textual construct. Language
doesn't record reality, it shapes and creates it, so that the whole of our universe is
textual. Further, for the theorist, meaning is jointly constructed by reader and
writer. It isn't just 'there' and waiting before we get to the text but requires the
reader's contribution to bring it into being.

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 9

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

7. Hence, any claim to offer a definitive reading would be futile. The meanings
within a literary work are never fixed and reliable, but always shifting,
multi-faceted and ambiguous. In literature, as in all writing, there is never the
possibility of establishing fixed and definite meanings: rather, it is characteristic of
language to generate infinite webs of meaning, so that all texts are necessarily
self-contradictory, as the process of deconstruction will reveal. There is no final
court of appeal in these matters, since literary texts, once they exist, are viewed
by the theorist as independent linguistic structures whose authors are always
'dead' or 'absent'.

5. Theorists distrust all 'totalising' notions. For instance, the notion of 'great' books
as an absolute and self-sustaining category is to be distrusted, as books always
arise out of a particular socio-political situation, and this situation should not be
suppressed, as tends to happen when they are promoted to 'greatness'. Likewise,
the concept of a 'human nature', as a generalised norm which transcends the
idea of a particular race, gender, or class, is to be distrusted too, since it is usually
in practice Eurocentric (that is, based on white European norms) and
androcentric (that is, based on masculine norms and attitudes). Thus, the appeal
to the idea of a generalised, supposedly inclusive, human nature is likely in
practice to marginalise, or denigrate, or even deny the humanity of women, or
disadvantaged groups.

LITERARY CRITICISM

Holman (1992) defined criticism as a term which has been applied since the
17th century, justification, analysis, or judgment of works of art. He added that
there are many ways which criticism may be classified. It may be classified
according to the purpose which it is intended to serve. The principal purposes
which critics have had are: (1) justify’s one’s own work or to explain it and its
underlying principles to an uncomprehending audience (Dryden, Wordsworth,
Henry James); (2) to justify imaginative art in a world that tends to find its value
questionable (Sidney, Shelley, the New Criticism); (3) to describe rules for writers
and to legislate taste for the audience (Pope, Boileau, the Marxists); (4) to
interpret works to readers who might otherwise fail to understand or appreciate
them (Edmund Wilson, Matthew Arnold); (5) to judge works by clearly defined
standards of evaluation (Samuel Johnson, T. S. Elliot); (6) to discover and apply
the principles which describe the foundations of good art (Coleridge, Addison, I.A.
Richards).
Then, Tyson (2006) explained that, literary criticism is the application of
critical theory to a literary text, whether or not a given critic is aware of the
theoretical assumptions informing her or his interpretation. As critics confer their
interpretation about the text, they are doing literary criticism. What guides the
critic to interpret the text, he is using critical theory (literary theory).

LITERARY THEORIES

Semiotics/Structuralist Theory

In the discussion of Eagleton (1996) structuralism, as the term suggests, is

concerned with structures, and more particularly with examining the general laws
by which they work. Then, Barry (2002) explained that structuralism is an
intellectual movement which began in France in the 1950s and is first seen in the
work of the anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss (1908—) and the literary critic
Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 10
Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

Roland Barthes (1915-1980). He also mentioned that, structuralism was imported

into Britain mainly in the 1970s and attained widespread influence, and even
notoriety, throughout the 1980s. Moreover, Selden, Widdowson and Brooker
(2005) explained that in a 1968 essay, Roland Barthes put the structuralist view
very powerfully, and argued that writers only have the power to mix already
existing writings, to reassemble or redeploy them; writers cannot use writing to
‘express’ themselves, but only to draw upon that immense dictionary of language
and culture which is ‘always already written’ (to use a favourite Barthesian
phrase). It would not be misleading to use the term ‘anti-humanism’ to describe
the spirit of structuralism. Indeed the word has been used by structuralists
themselves to emphasize their opposition to all forms of literary criticism in which
the human subject is the source and origin of literary meaning.

In other words, structuralism has linguistic background. To understand this

theory, critic needs to be knowledgeable of Ferdinand Saussure’s key ideas;
object of linguistic investigation and relationship between words and things - from
his book Course in General Linguistics (1915). Also, in structuralism Barry (2002)
clearly discussed that the structures in question here are those imposed by our
way of perceiving the world and organising experience, rather than objective
entities already existing in the external world. It follows from this that meaning or
significance isn't a kind of core or essence inside things: rather, meaning is
always outside. Meaning is always an attribute of things, in the literal sense that
meanings are attributed to the things by the human mind, not contained within
them. But let's try to be specific about what it might mean to think primarily in
terms of structures when considering literature.

Eagleton (1996) illustrated structuralism by giving a simple example. He said,

suppose we are analysing a story in which a boy leaves home after quarrelling
with his father, sets out on a walk through the forest in the heat of the day and
falls down a deep pit. The father comes out in search of his son, peers down the
pit, but is unable to see him because of the darkness. At that moment the sun has
risen to a point directly overhead, illuminates the pit's depths with its rays and
allows the father to rescue his child. After a joyous reconciliation, they return
home together. What a structuralist critic would do would be to schematize the
story in diagrammatic form. The first unit of signification, 'boy quarrels with father',
might be rewritten as 'low rebels Structuralism and Semiotics 83 against high'.
The boy's walk through the forest is a movement along a horizontal axis,
incontrast to the vertical axis 'low/high', and could be indexed as 'middle'. The fall
into the pit, a place below ground, signifies 'low' again, and the zenith of the sun
'high'. By shining into the pit, the sun has in a sense stooped 'low', thus inverting
the narrative's first signifying unit, where 'low' struck against 'high'. The
reconciliation between father and son restores an equilibrium between 'low' and
'high', and the walk back home together, signifying 'middle', marks this
achievement of a suitably intermediate state. Flushed with triumph, the
structuralist rearranges his rulers and reaches for the next story.

In analyzing a literary text using this theory, based from Barry(2002),

these are the things that structuralist critics can follow:

1. They analyse (mainly) prose narratives, relating the text to some larger
containing structure, such as:
(a) the conventions of a particular literary genre, or
(b) a network of intertextual connections, or
(c) a projected model of an underlying universal narrative structure, or
(d) a notion of narrative as a complex of recurrent patterns or motifs.
Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 11
Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

2. They interpret literature in terms of a range of underlying parallels with the

structures of language, as described by modern linguistics. For instance, the
notion of the 'mytheme', posited by Levi-Strauss, denoting the minimal units of
narrative 'sense', is formed on the analogy of the morpheme, which, in linguistics,
is the smallest unit of grammatical sense. An example of a morpheme is the 'ed'
added to a verb to denote the past tense.

3. They apply the concept of systematic patterning and structuring to the whole
field of Western culture, and across cultures, treating as 'systems of signs'
anything from Ancient Greek myths to brands of soap powder.

Deconstruction/Poststructuralist Theory

At some point in the late 1960s, structuralism gave birth to ‘poststructuralism’.

Some commentators believe that the later developments were already inherent in
the earlier phase. One might say that poststructuralism is simply a fuller
working-out of the implications of structuralism. But this formulation is not quite
satisfactory, because it is evident that poststructuralism tries to deflate the
scientific pretensions of structuralism.If structuralism was heroic in its desire to
master the world of artificial signs, poststructuralism is comic and anti-heroic in its
refusal to take such claims seriously. However, the poststructuralist mockery of
structuralism is almost a self-mockery: poststructuralists are structuralists who
suddenly see the error of their ways. (Selden, Widdowson & Brooker, 2005)
According to Queddeng (2013), the critic examines and tests assumptions
supporting intellectual insight in order to interrogate the ‘self-evident’ truths they
are based on. It tests the legitimacy of the contextual ‘bound’ understanding both
presents and requires…It is a concept that focuses on this instability of meaning,
then, rises out of Jacques Derrida’s recognition that in modern conceptions of
knowledge there is temporal ‘decentering’ or a ‘rupture’ in the conventional order,
a dramatic and decisive shift in traditional relations to authority, what might be
termed a radical challenge to all authority.
The analytical method known as deconstruction is most often associated with
Jacques Derrida, a French poststructuralist philosopher who discusses art as well
as written texts. Derrida opens up meanings, rather than fixing them within
structural patterns. But he shares with the structuralists the notion that a work has
no ultimate meaning conferred by its author. (Adams, 2011, p. 11)

Then, based from Barry (2002), below are the similarities and differences of
structuralism/semiotics and deconstruction/poststructuralism.

1. Origins
Structuralism derives ultimately from linguistics. Linguistics is a discipline
which has always been inherently confident about the possibility of establishing
objective knowledge. It believes that if we observe accurately, collect data
systematically, and make logical deductions then we can reach reliable
conclusions about language and the world. Structuralism inherits this confidently
scientific outlook: it too believes in method, system, and reason as being able to
establish reliable truths. By contrast, post-structuralism derives ultimately from
philosophy. Philosophy is a discipline which has always tended to emphasise the
difficulty of achieving secure knowledge about things. This point of view is
encapsulated in Nietzsche's famous remark 'There are no facts, only
interpretations'. Philosophy is, so to speak, sceptical by nature and usually
undercuts and questions commonsensical notions and assumptions. Its
Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 12
Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
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procedures often begin by calling into question what is usually taken for granted
as simply the way things are. Post-structuralism inherits this habit of scepticism,
and intensifies it. It regards any confidence in the scientific method as naive, and
even derives a certain masochistic intellectual pleasure from knowing for certain
that we can't know anything for certain, fully conscious of the irony and paradox
which doing this entails.

2. Tone and Style

Structuralist writing tends towards abstraction and generalisation. It aims for
a detached, 'scientific coolness' of tone. Given its derivation from linguistic
science, this is what we would expect. An essay like Roland Barthes's 1966 piece
'Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative' (reprinted in Image, Music,
Text, ed. Stephen Heath, 1977) is typical of this tone and treatment, with its
discrete steps in an orderly exposition, complete with diagrams. The style is
neutral and anonymous, as is typical of scientific writing Post-structuralist writing,
by contrast, tends to be much more emotive. Often the tone is urgent and
euphoric, and the style flamboyant and self-consciously showy. Titles may well
contain puns and allusions, and often the central line of the argument is based on
a pun or a word-play of some kind. Often deconstructive writing fixes on some
'material' aspect of language, such as a metaphor used by a writer, or the
etymology of a word. Overall it seems to aim for an engaged warmth rather than
detached coolness.

3. Attitude to Language
Structuralists accept that the world is constructed through language, in the
sense that we do not have access to reality other than through the linguistic
medium. All the same, it decides to live with that fact and continue to use
language to think and perceive with. After all, language is an orderly system, not
a chaotic one, so realising our dependence upon it need not induce intellectual
despair.

By contrast, post-structuralism is much more fundamentalist in insisting upon

the consequences of the view that, in effect, reality itself is textual.
Post-structuralism develops what threaten to become terminal anxieties about
the possibility of achieving any knowledge through language. The verbal sign, in
its view, is constantly floating free of the concept it is supposed to designate.
Thus, the post-structuralist's way of speaking about language involves a rather
obsessive imagery based on liquids - signs float free of what they designate,
meanings are fluid, and subject to constant 'slippage' or 'spillage'. This linguistic
liquid, slopping about and swilling over unpredictably, defies our attempts to carry
signification carefully from 'giver' to 'receiver' in the containers we call words. We
are not fully in control of the medium of language, so meanings cannot be planted
in set places, like somebody planting a row of potato seeds; they can only be
randomly scattered or 'disseminated', like the planter walking along and
scattering seed with broad sweeps of the arm, so that much of it lands
unpredictably or drifts in the wind.

Likewise, the meanings words have can never be guaranteed one hundred
percent pure. Thus, words are always 'contaminated' by their opposites - you
can't define night without reference to day, or good without reference to evil. Or
else they are interfered with by their own history, so that obsolete senses retain a
troublesome and ghostly presence within present-day usage, and are likely to
materialise just when we thought it was safe to use them. Thus, a seemingly
innocent word like 'guest', is etymologically cognate with 'host is', which means
an enemy or a stranger, thereby inadvertently manifesting the always potentially
unwelcome status of the guest.
Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 13
Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
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Likewise, the long-dormant metaphorical bases of words are often

reactiviated by their use in philosophy or literature and then interfere with literal
sense, or with the stating of single meanings. Linguistic anxiety, then, is a
keynote of the post-structuralist outlook.

4. Project
The 'project' here means the fundamental aims of each movement, what it is
they want to persuade us of. Structuralism, firstly, questions our way of
structuring and categorising reality, and prompts us to break free of habitual
modes of perception or categorisation, but it believes that we can thereby attain a
more reliable view of things.

Post-structuralism is much more fundamental: it distrusts the very notion of

reason, and the idea of the human being as an independent entity, preferring the
notion of the 'dissolved' or 'constructed' subject, whereby what we may think of as
the individual is really a product of social and linguistic forces -that is, not an
essence at all, merely a 'tissue of textualities'. Thus, its torch of scepticism burns
away the intellectual ground on which the Western civilisation is built.

Psychoanalytic Theory

Adams (2011), discussed that the branch of psychology known as

psychoanalysis was originated by the Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud in the
late nineteenth century. Then, Eagleton (1996) said that what has dominated
human history to date is the need to abhor; and for Freud that harsh necessity
means that we must repress some of our tendencies to pleasure and gratification.
If we were not called upon to work in order to survive, we might simply lie around
all day doing nothing. Every human being has to undergo this repression of what
Freud named the 'pleasure principle' by the 'reality principle', but for some of us,
and arguably for whole societies, the repression may become excessive and
make us ill. We are sometimes willing to forgo gratification to an heroic extent, but
usually in the canny trust that by deferring an immediate pleasure we will recoup
it in the end, perhaps in richer form. In addition, he also said that Freud looks at
its implications for the psychical life. The paradox or contradiction on which his
work rests is that we come to be what we are only by a massive repression of the
elements which have gone into our making. Furthermore, Freud believed that
human beings are not aware of these repressions.

In analyzing a literary text using this theory, based from Barry(2002),

these are the things that Freudian psychoanalytic critics can follow:

1. They give central importance, in literary interpretation, to the distinction

between the conscious and the unconscious mind. They associate the literary
work's 'overt' content with the former, and the 'covert' content with the latter,
privileging the latter as being what the work is 'really' about, and aiming to
disentangle the two.

2. Hence, they pay close attention to unconscious motives and feelings, whether
these be (a) those of the author, or (b) those of the characters depicted in the
work.

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 14

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
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2. They demonstrate the presence in the literary work of classic psychoanalytic

symptoms, conditions, or phases, such as the oral, anal, and phallic stages of
emotional and sexual development in infants.

3. They make large-scale applications of psychoanalytic concepts to literary

history in general, for example, Harold Bloom's book The Anxiety of Influence
(1973) sees the struggle for identity by each generation of poets, under the
'threat' of the greatness of its predecessors, as an enactment of the Oedipus
complex.

5. They identify a 'psychic' context for the literary work, at the expense of social or
historical context, privileging the individual 'psycho-drama' above the 'social
drama' of class conflict. The conflict between generations or siblings, or between
competing desires within the same individual looms much larger than conflict
between social classes,

Marxist Criticism and New Historicism

Selden, Widdowson&Brooker (2005) mentioned that Karl Marx himself made

important general statements about culture and society in the 1850s. Even so, it
is correct to think of Marxist criticism as a twentieth-century phenomenon. They
also discussed that Karl marx believed that People have been led to believe
that their ideas, their cultural life, their legal systems, and their religions were the
creations of human and divine reason, which should be regarded as the
unquestioned guides to human life. Marx reverses this formulation and argues
that all mental (ideological) systems are the products of real social and economic
existence. The material interests of the dominant social class determine how
people see human existence, individual and collective. Legal systems, for
example, are not the pure manifestations of human or divine reason, but
ultimately reflect the interests of the dominant class in particular historical periods.
Then, according to Queddeng (2013), it disrupt both the hierarchy of history as
superior to literature and the distance between the two. Instead of viewing history
as the determining context for literature, critics like George Lukacs and Raymond
Williams throughout the 20th century have conceived history as a field of
discourse in which literature and criticism make their own impact as political
forces and, in effect, participate in an historical dialects. He added that,
contemporary Marxist approaches demand that criticism must be political, not
simply to interpret but to change the world. Also, he explained that historicism is
the awareness that history, like a fictional narrative, exists in a dialogue with
something foreign or other to it that can never be contained or controlled by the
historian.

In analyzing a literary text using this theory, based from Barry(2002),

these are the things that Marxist critics can follow:

1. They make a division between the 'overt' (manifest or surface) and 'covert'
(latent or hidden) content of a literary work (much as psychoanalytic critics do)
and then relate the covert subject matter of the literary work to basic Marxist
themes, such as class struggle, or the progression of society through various
historical stages, such as, the transition from feudalism to industrial capitalism.

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 15

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
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Thus, the conflicts in King Lear might be read as being 'really' about the conflict of
class interest between the rising class (the bourgeoisie) and the falling class (the
feudal overlords).
2. Another method used by Marxist critics is to relate the context of a work to the
social-class status of the author. In such cases an assumption is made (which
again is similar to those made by psychoanalytic critics) that the author is
unaware of precisely what he or she is saying or revealing in the text.3. A third
Marxist method is to explain the nature of a whole literary genre in terms of the
social period which 'produced' it. For instance, The Rise of the Novel, by Ian Watt,
relates the growth of the novel in the eighteenth century to the expansion of the
middle classes during that period. The novel 'speaks' for this social class, just as,
for instance, Tragedy 'speaks for' the monarchy and the nobility, and the Ballad
'speaks for' for the rural and semi-urban 'working class'.

3. A fourth Marxist practice is to relate the literary work to the social assumptions
of the time in which it is 'consumed', a strategy which is used particularly in the
later variant of Marxist criticism known as cultural materialism (see Chapter 9, pp.
182-9).

5. A fifth Marxist practice is the 'politicisation of literary form', that is, the claim that
literary forms are themselves determined by political circumstance. For instance,
in the view of some critics, literary realism carries with it an implicit validation of
conservative social structures: for others, the formal and metrical intricacies of
the sonnet and the iambic pentameter are a counterpart of social stability,
decorum, and order.

Feminism

According to Queddeng (2013), this is a challenge to male-centered thinking.

Feminist criticism seeks on the one hand to investigate and analyze the differing
representations of women and men in literary texts and, on the other hand, to
rethink literary history by exploring an often marginalized tradition of women’s
writing. Feminist criticism is concerned to question and challenge conventional
notions of masculinity and femininity; to explore ways in which such conventions
are inscribed in a largely patriarchal canon; and to consider the extent to which
writing, language and even literary form itself are themselves bound up with
issues of gender difference. (Bennet & Royle, 2004) Then, Selden, Widdowson &
Brooker (2005) discussed that feminist criticism, in all its many and various
manifestations, has also attempted to free itself from naturalized patriarchal
notions of the literary and the literary-critical.

In analyzing a literary text using this theory, based from Barry(2002),

these are the things feminist critics can follow:

1. Rethink the canon, aiming at the rediscovery of texts written by women.

2. Revalue women's experience.
3. Examine representations of women in literature by men and women.
4. Challenge representations of women as 'Other', as 'lack', as part of 'nature'.
5. Examine power relations which obtain in texts and in life, with a view to
breaking them down, seeing, reading as a political act, and showing the extent of
patriarchy.
8. Recognise the role of language in making what is social and constructed seem
transparent and 'natural'.

9. Raise the question of whether men and women are 'essentially' different
because of biology, or are socially constructed as different.
Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 16
Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

10. Explore the question of whether there is a female language, an ecriture

feminine, and whether this is also available to men.

11. 'Re-read' psychoanalysis to further explore the issue of female and male
identity.

10. Question the popular notion of the death of the author, asking whether there
are only 'subject positions ... constructed in discourse', or whether, on the
contrary, the experience (e.g. of a black or lesbian
writer) is central.

11. Make clear the ideological base of supposedly 'neutral' or 'mainstream'

literary interpretations.

Queer Theory

During the 1980s, the term ‘queer’ was reclaimed by a new generation of
political activists involved in Queer nation and protest groups such as ActUp and
Outrage, though some lesbian and gay cultural activists and critics who adopted
the term in the 1950s and 1960s continue to use it to describe their particular
sense of marginality to both mainstream and minority cultures. In the 1990s,
‘Queer Theory’ designated a radical rethinking of the relationship between
subjectivity, sexuality and representation. Its emergence in that decade owes
much to the earlier work of queer critics such as Ann Snitow (1983), Carol Vance
(1984) and Joan Nestle (1988), but also to the allied challenge of diversity
initiated by Black and Third World critics. In addition, it gained impetus from
postmodern theories with which it overlapped in signifificant ways. Teresa de
Lauretis, in the Introduction to the ‘Queer Theory’ issue of differences (1991),
traced the emergence of the term ‘queer’ and described the impact of
postmodernism on lesbian and gay theorizing. (Selden, Widdowson & Brooker,
2005, p. 269)

In analyzing a literary text using this theory, based from Barry(2002),

these are the things lesbian/gay critics can follow:

1. Identify and establish a canon of 'classic' lesbian/gay writers whose work

constitutes a distinct tradition. These are, in the main, twentieth-century writers,
such as (for lesbian writers in Britain) Virginia Woolf, Vita Sackville-West,
Dorothy Richardson, Rosamund Lehmann, and Radclyffe Hall.
2.
2. Identify lesbian/gay episodes in mainstream work and discuss them as such
(for example, the relationship between Jane and Helen in Jane Eyre), rather than
reading same-sex pairings in non-specific ways, for instance, as symbolising two
aspects of the same character (Zimmerman).

3. Set up an extended, metaphorical sense of 'lesbian/gay' so that it connotes a

moment of crossing a boundary, or blurring a set of categories. All such 'liminal'
moments mirror the moment of selfidentification as lesbian or gay, which is
necessarily an act of conscious resistance to established norms
and boundaries.

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 17

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

3. Expose the 'homophobia' of mainstream literature and criticism, as seen in

ignoring or denigrating the homosexual aspects of the work of major canonical
figures, for example, by omitting overtly homosexual love lyrics from selections or
discussions of the poetry of W. H. Auden (Mark Lilly).

12. Foreground homosexual aspects of mainstream literature which have

previously been glossed over, for example the strongly homo-erotic tenderness
seen in a good deal of First World War poetry.

6. Foreground literary genres, previously neglected, which significantly influenced

ideals of masculinity or femininity, such as the nineteenth-century adventure
stories with a British 'Empire' setting (for example those by Rudyard Kipling and
Rider Haggard) discussed by Joseph Bristow in Empire Boys (Routledge,
1991).

Sample Reading:

To be able to write your own literary criticism, choose a literary work that you
want use. Make sure to read it comprehensively to be able to choose theories for
your literary criticism. Keep in mind that you should be knowlegable about your
chosen theory. In one literary work, you can use many theories depending on
what you want to focus.

The sample below is the discussion of Villa and Talabong (2011) in their study
about the female protagonists in the two bestselling books“Twilight” by Stephenie
Meyer and “Hush Hush” by Becca Fitzpatrick. They utilized Feminism theory to
analyze the female characters; Bella and Nora in the two novels. As you read this,
take note on how they used Feminism theory to explain the impact of their
character to the story, to show their portrayal on women, and to highlight their
strengths and weaknesses as women. Also, have a keen eye on the application
of the theory to fully justify the Bella and Nora as characters.

THE FEMALE PROTAGONISTS: AN ANALYSIS ON THE PORTRAYAL

OF WOMEN IN POPULAR LITERATURE
By: Ma. Myron Zina V. Talabong and Joanne Kathrine C. Villa

The Portrayal of Women

“To emancipate woman is to refuse to confine her to the relations she bears to man, not to deny them to
her; let her have her independent existence and she will continue nonetheless to exist him; mutually
recognizing each other as subject, each will yet remain for the other another.
-Simone Beauvoir

In the past, women have always been consigned to be the background by the
society. They were the caretakers of the house, the one who brought up the children and
cooked for everybody. These contributions of women are not given respect and
importance. Women are seen in the cult of domesticity. Women never have a chance to
develop any other talent except for the household chores. Women do not have much say
in decision making too, either in the family or the society. Men first and women second –
that has always been the norms which societies have to follow.
As discussed in the book ‘Gender Stereotypes and Roles’, for women, there
are at least three distinct stereotypes: the housewife (the traditional woman), the
professional woman (independent, ambitious, self-confident), and the playboy bunny
Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 18
Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

(sex object). Although these three types of women have differed they still have
commonalities like they were all expected to be concerned to have children. According to
Smith (1974), “within sociology, the study of women has been subsumed under the
general headings of family or sex and gender studies, while substantive work in the field
has focused on men and men’s lives.” Ollenburger (1992) supported this as he stated
that, “Women as object of study are largely ignored. Only in the field of marriage and the
family is she seen to exist. Her place in sociology, in other words, the traditional one
assigned to her by the larger society: women’s place is in the home.” With this social
context of women, it can be seen that women have always been looked as someone who
is only active at home and nothing more outside of it.
Traditionally, stereotypically masculine traits have been viewed more
positively and as more socially desirable than stereotypically feminine traits. As cited on
Max Weber’s article on ‘Status Conflict’, “women’s status in society could now be
analyzed in terms of their disadvantages in both economic and social power, and the
construction of social prestige as it related to gender and occupational roles.” Since
women have been generally described as weak on competency cluster, jobs given to
them are limited. In Weber’s article it is added that women’s position in society is derived
from unequal distributions of wealth and power thus making them less important.
To counter all these settlements and the society and to get the women equal rights
and opportunities as men, a social movement known as “feminism” started in the western
world.
Feminist theory has said to have various manifestations as Roman Selden, et al.
explains that “feminism and feminist criticism may be better termed a cultural politics
than ‘theory’ or ‘theories’ ” because the term itself signifies or refers as male, ‘the hard,
abstract, avant-gardism of intellectual work.’ But for Charlotte Bunch in the article ‘Not by
Degrees Feminist Theory and Education,’ “theory is not just a body of facts or a set of
personal opinions. It involves explanations and hypotheses that are based on available
knowledge and experience.” She even added that “theory doesn’t necessarily progress
in a linear fashion, but examining its components is useful in understanding existing
political theory as well as in developing new insights”. The feminist theory starts with
women’s negative experiences in the Patriarchal society. It provokes the women to stand
on their feet and to voice out all of their sentiments. Feminism as a whole “provides a
basis for understanding every area of our lives, and a feminist perspective can affect the
politically, culturally, economically and spiritually.”
The history of feminism can be traced in the three basic positions. According to Joan
Kelly in Paula Treichler and Cheris Kramarae in their article in ‘The Challenge of Local
Feminisms Womens Movement in Global Perspective’,these three positions are first
conscious stand in opposition to male defamation and mistreatment of women; a
dialectical opposition to misogyny, second, a belief that both sexes are culturally, and not
just biologically formed; a belief that women were a social group shaped to fit male
notions about a defective sex and lastly, an outlook that transcended the accepted value
systems if the time by exposing and opposing the prejudice and narrowness; a desire for
a truly general conception of humanity. The treatment and perception of society leads to
different faces of Feminism. These different faces needs “a solid feminist theory (that)
would enable us to develop visions and plans for change that sustain people engaged in
day-today political activity”.
The different feminist theory approaches in women’s studies that some sociologists
include are the liberal-feminism, Marxist feminism, radical feminism, socialist feminism,
cultural feminism, and lastly the post structural feminism. These theories are similar in
that they all focus on women’s oppression in the society however they have their own
definite and different explanations on the causes of women’s oppression.
As Mill discuses on the book ‘Feminist Approaches to the Study of Women’, “liberal
feminism works was on the equal capacity and capability on women.” They thought that
women were always inferior or superior and having the differences of the two gender that
attributably to individual intellectual and emotional differences. The solution for change is
for women to gain opportunities primarily on the institutions of education and economics.
Mill added that the focus of liberal feminism is on the individual and on equality.
Marxist feminist tackles the oppression of women by the beginnings of private
property and it linked to the social organization particularly on the economic order. ‘The
Origin of Family, Private Property and the State’ by Friedrich Engels, a book about
Marxist Feminism presented the outline between the introduction of private property and
Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 19
Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
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LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

women’s oppression on the society. On his article he also mentioned the “connection
between the patriarchal oppression in the family and the oppression of the proletariat by
bourgeoisie”. He added that there is “connection between patriarchy and capitalism in
Woman’s Consciousness, Man’s World” because in capitalism the ability to impose the
notion of the family, childhood, feminity, and sexuality reinforces and maintains the
power of bourgeois man.
In Radical Feminism women are described as oppressed by patriarchal social
systems. According to Shulamith Firestone’s The Dialect of Sex, he argues that women’s
oppression is biologically based since women are tied to the childbirth and childbearing
processes which continually place them in positions dependence on men to survive. It is
supported on Kate Millet’s Sexual Politics when she discussed her view of Patriarchy
which she sees as pervasive and which demands a systematic overview-as a political
institution. It is implied that patriarchy subordinates the female to the male or treats the
female as an inferior male, and this power is exerted, directly or indirectly, in civil and
domestic life to constrain women.
The solutions for change involve radical social changes of the societal institutions
are part of the framework of Social-feminist. Juliet Mitchell’s books, Woman’s State
conclude that it “laid the groundwork as a consequence of both patriarchal and class
oppression” because it identifies the central socialist-feminist constructs for analyzing the
dimensions of oppression like in production, reproduction, socialization and sexuality. On
the other hand on the book of Mithchell Psychoanalysis and Feminism she claims that
“the concepts of patriarchy and capitalism are clearly juxtaposed” because it can be
rejected that notion of being equal access that eliminates women’s oppression. Mithchell
also identifies ‘ideological mode of patriarchy as separate and distinct from the economic
mode of production’. Both of their sayings were the forms oppression that needs to
liberate the women.
The focus of Cultural Feminism is that feminity is the most desirable form of human
behavior. Brownmiller supported this and concluded that, “in a rejection of the masculine
ideal and the labels placed on feminity by the patriarchal world, cultural feminist redefine
feminity in a positive framework. Woman’s existence as a separate and unique reality
notion is discussed on the article ‘Cultural Feminism’, it is being said that it provides (1)
an integrating system, pivotal to kinship; (2) a love and/or duty ethos; and (3) a culture
bounded by a distinct awareness of verbal/nonverbal behavior or distinctive technologies.
Cultural feminist affirm that there are women by defining women in terms of their
activities or cultural attributes.
On Poststructionalist Feminism, Simone de Beauvoir discusses “how man has come
to define himself as the ‘self’ and woman as the ‘other” on his book ‘The Second Sex’
because woman has no difference from man but in terms of inferiority to man. But for
Tong he pointed that, “If woman (the other) threatens man (the self) then in order for the
man (the self) to be free, he must subordinate the woman (the other)”. The poststructural
feminists focus on individual solutions even through the key to oppression is often
structural, such as economic discrimination.
Theories which can be used for activism to assist some women may in fact be used
to oppress others. As stated earlier these theories have similarities, they all want equality,
recognition and respect to women but they have their own arguments.

The Similarities and Differences of the Female Protagonists

Isabella “Bella” Swan and Nora Grey are two female protagonists of the novels of
“Twilight” and “Hush Hush” respectively. They have embodied the unusual in the usual
characters in a novel. They have been popular that they needed to be characterized
upon as of their representation as a woman.
Women in general are always searching for answers. In order to get information they
need to do something. According to the book ‘Gender, Stereotype and Roles’, “Women
have always been a curious being.”

“‘Who was the boy with the reddish brown hair?’ I peeked at him from the corner of my eye, a
nd he was still staring at me, but not gawking like the other students had today-he had a slightly
frustrated expression. I looked down again.”
- Bella, Twilight, p.22

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 20

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

Bella was curious to know why Edward was acting weird about her being around him.
With this, she tried to know and search for reasons why he was like that. Like Bella, Nora
was curious to know why Patch seemed to know her. Both Edward and Patch act
different when they were with them. Bella and Nora were puzzled with their identity
because they were always there when something bad is happening.

“More freedom to be himself. And those black eyes were getting to me. They were like magnets clinging to my every
move. I swallowed discreetly and tried to ignore the queasy tap dance in my stomach. I couldn’t quite put my finger on
it, but something about Patch wasn’t right. Something about him wasn’t normal. Something wasn’t….safe.”
Nora, Hush Hush, p. 25

As female, they weren’t used to men who act different around them. They were more
than curious to know what the men in their lives were thinking about them.
As mentioned by Margaret Sanger she said, “Woman must not accept; she must
challenge. She must not be awed by that which has been built up around her; she must
reverence that woman in her which struggles for expression.” Given the fact that Bella
and Nora were curious to Edward and Patch, they made way on finding who they really
are. On page 122, Bella tried to ask Jacob on what does he know about the Cullen’s.
She even did some researches on the internet to support her intuitions. She also did ask
Edward directly. Nora as well has made her own way on doing her researches. On page
79 she sneaked into the office of the secretary in their school to look for Patch’s student
profile. She also tried to research about him on the library and asked him directly. The
resourcefulness of a girl can be seen here. Despite the fact that she was hindered on
leading to the real story of the boys, they still managed to do it no matter what happened.
The straight forward attitude of a woman can be seen in Bella and Nora when they
were able to say what’s on their mind when they were mad and when they are not. As
mentioned by Hermione Gingold, a feminist, she said that, “Fighting is essentially a
masculine idea; a woman’s weapon is her tongue.” This was evident on page 64 when
Bella was mad that Edward won’t tell her how did saved her from the car accident,

“All I know is that you weren’t anywhere near me – Tyler didn’t see you, either, so don’t tell me I hit my head too hard.
That ran was going to crush us both – and it didn’t, and your hands left dents in the side of it – and you left a dent in
the other car, and you’re not hurt at all – and the van should have smashed my legs, but you were holding it up…”I
could hear how crazy it sounded, and I couldn’t continue. I was so mad I could feel the tears coming; I tried to force
them back by grinding my teeth together.
Bella, Twilight, p.64

This can also be shown on Nora’s sentiments when she was having a fight with
Patch because she thought he was lying at her.

“You lied. You brought me here so you could kill me. That’s what Dabria said you want to do. Well what are you
waiting for?” I didn’t have a clue where I was going with this, and I didn’t care. I was spitting words in an attempt to
keep my horror at bay. “You’ve been trying to kill me all along. Right from the start. Are you going to kill me now? “I
stared at him, hard and unblinking, trying to keep tears from spilling as I remembered the fateful day he’d walked into
my life.
Nora, Hush Hush, p.298

It was implied in here how woman show her anger verbally rather than hurting
someone.Bella and Nora’s character here have wanted to be heard. They use their
words as a way of releasing their anger. They have wanted to let Edward and Patch
know their opinions and feelings about the things that affected them. And if they were not
talking about their feelings, they resort to keeping their thoughts to themselves.
Knowing that Edward and Patch was not the typical human being a Vampire and an
Angel they managed to accept it. On page 195 Bella thought to herself,

“About three things I was absolutely positive. First Edward was a vampire. Second, there was a part of him – and I
didn’t know how potent that part might be – that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and
irrevocably in love with him.”
-Bella, Twilight, p.195

It was almost the same thought, Nora has on page 305 as she narrates,

“I knew Patch lived a life of closed doors and harbored secrets. I wasn’t presumptuous enough to think even half of
them revolved around me. Patch lived in different life outside the one he shared with me. Mora than once I’d
speculated what his other life might be like.” I always got the feeling the less I knew about it, the better.
-Nora, Hush Hush, p.305
Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 21
Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

On Carl Jung’s female archetype, Bella and Nora could be considered as the
companion. According to Jung, this archetype is loyal, tenacious and unselfish in their
service to a more authorities figure. In this relationship she provides him with emotional
and practical support to enable her partner to concentrate on his mission. Without doubt
they have let their man be what they really are. They didn’t complain and never did on
bringing them down. Not even when they’re mad at them.
When in danger, both Bella and Nora have their own choice on saving those people
who were close to them. Bella was caught in dilemma between saving herself and her
family but chose the latter otherwise, despite the agony of her wanting to see Edward.
She went out from the protection of Alice and Jasper by following the exact instruction of
James who wanted to kill her. He even wrote a letter to Edward in case something might
happen to her. On page 432 she wrote,

“I love you. I am sorry. He has my mom, and I have to try. I know it may not work. I am so very, very sorry. Don’t be
angry with Alice and Jasper. If I get away from them it will be a miracle. Tell them thank you for me. Alice especially,
please. And please, please don’t come after him. That’s what he wants. I think. I can’t bear it if anyone has to be hurt
because of me, especially you. Please this is the only I can ask you now. For me. I love you. Forgive me. Bella.”
Bella, Twilight, p.432

It was a heroic act for both Bella and Nora as Nora made way on saving her best
friend Vee from those who tried to kill her despite of Patch telling her to stay on the car
and he will try to do something to save Vee. Nora can’t let herself do nothing that’s why
on page 353 when Elliot called her on her phone she decided to go,

“With my hearth in my throat, I got out the car. I looked up at the dark windows of the school. I didn’t think that Elliot
knew Patch was inside. His voice came across impatient, not angry or irritated. My only hope was that Patch had a
plan and would make sure nothing happened to me or Vee. The moon was clouded over, and under a shadow of a fear
I walked up to the east door.”
Nora, Hush Hush, p.353
With this, they can be considered as “the heroine’. According to Carl Jung, the
heroine is characterized with theawakening of her inner strength and power so she can
overcome great obstacles. These acts of bravery often benefit not just the heroine but
her family or group.The bravery that two female protagonist showed as evident. They
might be hesitant at first but they do what they think they have to do.
Before, women were deprived for the right to education but now they weren’t. Bella
and Nora were two mentally competent beings.

“We had a pop quiz on Wuthering Heights. It was straight forward, very easy.
Bella, Twilight, p.38

It was even presented on there that Bella was able to answer the different phases of
mitosis on their Biology class. She even knows some classic novels and was able to
write a paper about it. Nora on the other hand is good in her classes too.

“I took inventory of the feeling playing out inside me. I wasn’t hungry. I wasn’t tired. I wasn’t even all that lonely but I
was little bit restless about my Biology assignment. I told Patch I wouldn’t call, and six hour ago I’d meant it. All I
could think now was that I didn’t want to fail. Biology was my toughest subject. My grade tottered problematically
between A and B. in my mind, that was a difference between a full and a half scholarship in my future.”
Nora, Hush Hush, p.20

Nora was presented in the novel as a girl who is serious with her studies. She
wanted to have good grades because she wanted to have a full scholarship for her
college. Her mom was a single parent since her dad died and studying was her way of
helping her mother.
Woman is said to be warm loving. According to Broverman in his article on his book
‘Gender, Stereo and Roles’, feminist is associated with warmth, expressiveness, and
nurturance. This could be related to Bella’s mother and how she views her as a
woman.

“She looks a like a lot of me, but she’s prettier,”I said. He raised his eyebrows. “I have too much Charlie is me. She’s
more outgoing than I am,and braver. She’s irresponsible and slightly eccentric, and she is very unpredictable cook.
She’s my best friend.” I stopped. Talking about her was making me depressed.
Bella, Twilight, p. 105

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 22

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

Since Bella’s mom and her dad separated when she was just a baby, her mother
had raised her all by herself. For this reason they have been close enough as
mother-daughter and best of friends as well. She said good things about her and there’s
a indication here that she idolize her mom because she see her as a brave and
independent given the fact that she was raised alone. And now that she decided to live
with her dad, it saddens her to think about her mom.
On Nora’s side however, she was closer with her dad. Unfortunately her dad died on
an accident so she was left with her mom.

“My mom works for Hugo Renaldi Auction Company, coordinating estate and antique auctions all along the East
Coast. This week she was in upstate New York. Her job required a lot of travel, and she paid Dorothea to cook and
clean, but I was pretty sure the fine print on Dorothea’s job description included keeping a watchful, parental eye on
me.”
Nora, Huhs Hush, p.19

Unlike Bella, Nora is not as close with her mom because of her work. They seldom
meet because their time won’t permit so. Also one could see the relationship of Electra
Complex. According to Debasmita Chanda’s article ‘Electra Complex and Oedipus
Complex’ she stated that, there is a common theory that an attraction automatically
develops from one sex to the opposite sex. A child’s get a long best with his/her
mother/father before he develops any connection with others around him. The instinct is
always there. So far this reason the son is attached to his opposite sex that is his mother.
In the same manner, a daughter is likely to get attracted to her father. This felling is
quite simple; however it can sometimes get very complex and can then become a source
of great concern.”
The Electra Complex was explained by Nora’s contemplation when her mom, said
that if she lose the job she would sell their,

“But this is our house, all my memories and here, the memories of my dad was here. I couldn’t believe she didn’t feel
the same way. I would do whatever it took to stay.”
Nora, Hush Hush, p.187

“I’m afraid I’ll forget what he look like. Not in pictures, but hanging around on a Saturday working in sweats,
making scrambled eggs.”
Nora, Hush Hush, p.189

In here, though the relationship of Nora and his dad were not elaborated, the
emotion she’s trying to evoke was she was missing him. Also it was implied that she was
secretive to her mom when she went out with Patch and she didn’t told her mom about it.
As opposed to Nora, Bella is not close to her dad. As mentioned earlier, her parents
separated when she was young. When she decided to live with him in Forks there was
an awkward moment for them.

“But I was sure to be awkward with Charlie. Neither of us was what anyone would call verbose, and I didn’t know
what there was to say regardless. I knew he was more than a little confused by my decision-like my mother before me,
I hadn’t made a secret of my distaste for Forks.”
-Bella, Twilight, p.5

Domesticity has been tackled on the two novels but was shown on different sides.
With Bella, it was shown when she found out that her dad didn’t know how to cook so she
decided that she should do it.
“Last night I’d discovered that Charlie couldn’t cook much besides fried eggs and bacon. So I requested that I be
assigned kitchen detail for the duration of my stay. I also found out that he had no fool in the house.
So I had my shopping lists.”
Bella, Twilight, p.31

The act of domesticity as a female was shown in here. In Marxist feminism it stated
that, “women’s history of their material and economic oppression, and especially of how
the family and women’s domestic labor are constructed by and reproduce the sexual
division of labor.” But even if Bella was the one who do this, it was on her own accord
because she permits it to happen. She understands that her dad was the town sheriff so
Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 23
Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
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she felt it’s the least thing she could do. Nora on the either hand wasn’t able to do
household chores because they have a house keeper since her mom wasn’t always
around. Dorothea’s go on their house early in the morning and leave when Nora arrives
at home.

“At 9 o’clock Dorothea’s finish for the evening and locked up on her way out. I flash the porch lights twice to say
goodbye; they must have penetrated the fog, because she answered with a honk. I was alone.”
-Nora, Hush Hush,p.20
The act of domesticity here is presented in two ways. First, Bella does the chores
because she understands that her dad doesn’t know how to cook. Second, Nora wasn’t
able to do the chores because someone does it for her. According to Rosalind
Delmar,women always have a choice, and the choice was made by her alone. Given the
statements above, even if they were exercising domesticity or not it was because of the
choice they made.
Yet the Twilight Universe, for some reason, centers on Bella. Aside from her obvious,
helpless beauty and the occasionally sarcastic retort, she doesn’t seem to offer anything
to hold onto by way of substance. Bella’s most obviously frequently quality, when with
Edward and when without, is her undying devotion to him. This could be related to Carl
Jung’s female archetype ‘the lover”. According to Jung, the lover represents passion and
selfless devotion to another person. It also extends to the things that make our hearts
sing, like music, art or nature. The shadow aspect is obsessive passion that completely
takes over and negatively impacts on your health and self-esteem. Whatever anyone is
saying at her she is still under Edwards spell. This is an exact opposite to Nora and her
feelings to Patch, her independency from Patch had restricted the situation on falling for
him. It was never clear that they were having affair because their romantic feelings was
late established in the book. It was implied how important Patch is on her life because he
was ought to protect her in the end but they already had an understanding.
A character is one of the most important elements in a story. They are the life of the
story. In Twilight, Bella’s character is round-at first. According to Baritugo (2007), a
rounded character is anyone who has a complex personality; he or she is often portrayed
as a conflicted and contradictory person. Bella’s character seemed to be dull at first but
as you read the entire story, she actually has many characteristics but one personality
stood out and that’s her undying love for Edward. With her undying love for him, her
characteristics fall out and became flat. A flat character is the opposite of a round
character. This literary personality is notable for one kind of personality trait or
characteristic. Bella’s character was interesting at first given that the tone she was using
in the story was sarcasm. She’s not the typical high school student who wanted attention
and that made her different. But as Edward came to her life, her character started to fall
in one place, which is a girl who is seriously in love with someone and as the novel ends
she was still like that.
Nora’s character on the other hand is dynamic. According to Baritugo (2007), a
dynamic character is a person who changes over time, usually as a result of resolving a
central conflict or facing a major crisis. Most dynamic characters tend to be central rather
than peripheral characters, because resolving the conflict is the major role of central
characters. In here, it was said earlier that the conflict of Hush Hush mostly happened
because of Nora’s trust issues. She doesn’t trust Patch that much. She was presented as
a strong character and was enhanced when it was revealed by the end of the book that
she was not just a human being but another mythical creature herself-a nephilim. It was
explained in the book that a nephilim was made when an angel made love with a human
and had a child. The child is the nephilim. With this, she wasn’t just an ordinary person
that made her totally different from Bella.
Romantic fiction has been popular since then because of the image of the female
protagonist portray on a story. On Janice Radway’s article it was written that, “According
to Smithon women, The ideal romance is one which an intelligent and independent
woman with a good sense of humor is overwhelmed, after much suspicion and distrust,
and some cruelty and violence, by the love of an intelligent, tender, and good-humored
man, who in the course of their relationship is transformed from an emotional pre-literate
to someone who can care for her and nurture her in ways that traditionally we would
expect only from woman to a man. In here both Bella and Nora was presented in a way
that the popular reader could relate to. Stepehenie Meyer, the author of Twilight even
said that she created the character of Bella as someone who can every normal girl relate
Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 24
Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

to when faced with an enigmatic vampire. Like Bella, Nora is an ordinary girl only with
greater courage and late established mythical creature as a nephilim.
Regarding feminism, Foss (1999) pointed out on his book ‘Feminist Rhetorical
Theories’ that, “Feminism for us is not an abstract philosophy but a way of living our lives
by acting in ways that allow others to make choices, that affirm them and their
perspectives, and that do not oppress and exploit.” They have their own beliefs; see
things in their eyes and mind of their own. The decisions made by both Bella and Nora in
their lives by the end of the book were solely made by them. Nobody dictates them what
to do. These two characters showed many that women shouldn’t let others control their
lives. As what Henry David Thoreau believes “a man more right than his neighbor
constitutes a majority of one.” Stand to what you believe in, even others do not believe in
you. To make a CHOICE always matters to women.

Plot and the Female Protagonists

The plot of Twilight and Hush Hush revolves around the story of how a mythical
creature and an ordinary human being work their relationship out and how it becomes a
threat to the life of the other. According to Baritugo (2007), plot is the arrangement of
events to achieve an intended effect consisting of a series of carefully devised and
interrelated actions that progress through a struggle of opposing forces, called conflict, to
a climax and a denouement. This is different from story or story line which is the order of
events as they occur.
Both were set in sophomore year in High school. It was given fact as the characters said
it themselves. Also they both have courses on biology and that is for second year. It also
showed the issues of teenagers which are teenage love, boys, teen angst, studies and
self–seeking. With all of these components, the female protagonist of both novels has
shown their strengths and weaknesses. Both were able to face the conflict given to them
by the author. Although on some conflicts they weren’t successful. They have even
defied feminity in some case, but still they have managed to figure it out to themselves.
Looking closely, we might see the facade of Bella as weak; she was generally
submissive to Edward. But she was not imposed to act like that. She chose to be
submissive for him. She was like that because she loved him. In that matter we can see
her strong point as she chose Edward though she knew it would be dangerous. She
made it her way to be with him. She wanted him and she worked hard to get him. Not
every female protagonist can be like her.
Nora on the other hand is as strong as her personality was described by the author.
Her intelligence had made her cautious to Patch. He lured her on coming to him but she
endlessly struggled around him. She was not submissive at him, but she knows how to
listen. She didn’t even need the help of Patch to save her from time to time. Her general
characteristics could have been “always curious”. The conflict of the story came from her
curiosity but she managed to put up a fight on every single of them and succeeded.
The sad and eventual reality of the novel is that the Twilight universe only appears to
center on Bella by virtue of the importance of her life (or death), and the fact that she
narrates, when in actuality the Twilight universe centers on Edward. The sudden
overwhelming importance of Bella’s life is first established by Edward, and then is
intensified by him; so truly, the only reason the Twilight seems to center on Bella is her
narration. This is why Bella seems to fade to a stop without Edward nearby, the story
isn’t about her, even though she’s telling it, so she ceases to exist without Edward in
frame. The events in Bella’s life have nothing to do with her, and have only been god-like
accidents to bring her closer to Edward.
It is also the same as in Hush Hush, the whole story appeared to center on Nora by
also virtue of the importance of her life or (death), and the fact that she also narrates,
when reality the Hush Hush universe focus on Patch. Like Bella, the sudden importance
and danger of her life was first established by Patch, and then revealing her the truth
about her past in the end. But unlike Bella she didn’t fade to a stop when Patch isn’t
around her as she also interacts with the characters around her. She wasn’t always
thinking about Patch, she also thinks about her friends and family. It just so happen that
every event that they were not together was also connected to Patch that will be seen by
the end of the book.

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 25

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

References:

Adams, L. (2011). A History of Western Art. 5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hills Companies, Inc.
Barry, P. (2002). Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. Manchester
University Press.
Bennett, A. and N. Royle. (2004). An Introduction to Literature, Criticism, and Theory. 3rd ed. Great
Britain: Pearson Education Limited.

Eagleton,T. (1996). Literary Theory: An Introduction. 2nd ed. Blackwell Publishing.

Holman, C. H. (1992) A Handbook to Literature 6th ed. Indiana:The Odyssey Press, Inc.
Queddeng, (2013). Literature of the Philippines. Lucban, Quezon: Southern Luzon State
University.

Selden, R., P. Widdowson,& P. Brooker. (2005). A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary

Theory. 5th ed. Great Britain: Pearson Education Limited.

Smith, K. (nd). Literary Criticism Primer: A Guide to the Critical Approaches to Literature.
Baltimore County Public Schools.

Talabong, M. M. Z. and J. K. C. Villa. (2011). The Female Protagonists: An Analysis on the

Portrayal of Women in Popular Literature.

Tyson, L. (2006). Critical Theory Today: A User Friendly Guide. 2nd ed. Routledge Taylor &Francis
Group.

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 26

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

Lecture 3
Poetry and Its Elements

Overview:

What is your favorite song? Do you listen to it because of its rhythm or its
lyrics?
People find it hard to understand poetry, but they do not know that everyday
they are already engaging to it. As they listen to their favorite song, they are also
letting themselves enjoy poetry. Aside from the rhythm of the song, people enjoy
it because of its lines.

Objectives:
By the end of the lecture, students should have:

1. Defined poetry
2. Distinguished the different types of poetry
3. Identified the elements of poetry
4. Learned how to read poetry
5. Understood basic information about poetry

Scope of Lecture 3:

6. Definition of Poetry
7. Five Things to Remember about Poetry.
8. How to Read Poetry
9. Types of Poetry
Lyric Poetry
Narrative Poetry
Dramatic Poetry
10. Elements of Poetry
Content/Subject
Theme
Mood/Tone
Imagery
Symbols
Sound effect devices
Persona
Speaker
Shape and Form
Figurative Languages
Stanza
Rhythm
Foot
Meter

Poetry is the clear expression on of mixed feelings

-W.H. Auden

DEFINITION OF POETRY

Poetry is one of the genres of literature. Its existence has already gone too far,
as far as human civilization has gone through. From oral recitation down to
written poems, there are already so many innovations that occur which are
preferred to be used and practiced by both amateur and veteran poets.
Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 27
Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

There is no clear record about when it really started to take form. Holman
(1992) said that no literary historian presumes to point out the beginnings of
poetry, though the first conscious literary expression took the form of primitive
verse. Then, it is also difficult to define because of its complex nature. Dimalanta
said that regarding poetry, definitions can only be general and tentative,
oversimplified, personal,and at times, ambiguous. Attribute to this the essential
ineffable nature of poetry. (Guile, 2003, p. 10) Meanwhile, the simplest definition
according to Ang (2012) is, it is derived from a Greek word poesis meaning
“making or creating.”

To easily understand poetry, Baritugo et al (2007) gave five things to

remember about poetry.

1. Poetry is a concentrated thought.

Poems use few words to express the emotions, and thoughts of poets. In
understanding poetry, one must know the use of its language. According to Abad,
poetry is a special use of language by which language transcends itself. (Guile,
2003, p. 11)
2. Poetry is a kind of word-music.
To fully enjoy poetry, one must read it aloud. In this way, the reader will be
able to hear the use of words as it creates music. Also, the use of rhythm in
poetry lets its meaning more comprehensible. Lacia and Gonong (2003) said that
for the poet to convey ideas, he chooses and organizes his words into a pattern
of sound that is part of the total meaning.
3. Poetry expresses all the senses.
With use of language, poets help readers to use their sense. They let readers
smell the fragrant flower, see the blue skies, hear the singing birds, feel the cold
wind and taste the sweet mangoes.
The poet, as someone has said, does not speak the accurate language of
science, does not, for example, refer to water as H2O but as “rippling,” a “mirror,”
or “blue,” using not elements which compose water but the effect which water
creates in his imaginative mind and wanting the reader to respond to “water” as
physical fact rather than abstract concept. (Holman, 1992, p. 405)
4. Poetry answers our demand for rhythm.
Rhythm in poetry is essential for readers to fully enjoy. In reading aloud,
rhythm makes the poem more pleasing to the ears. Also, Baritugo said that a
poem beats time simply and strongly; therefore, we need only respond to it with
our own natural rhythm.
5. Poetry is observation plus imagination.
Abad said that the poem after all, for poet and reader, is work of imagination.
(Gulle, 2003, p.11) There are other readers find poetry difficult. The moment that
the reader fails to imagine the images in the poem then it will hard for him to
understand it. According to Lewis (1961) the image is a picture in words which
one must serve a purpose in a poem. In addition, Dimalanta explained that
effective imagery radiating from a given metaphorical center that is the core of the
poem’s body. (Gulle, 2003, p. 15)

These are the other things that you need to know in reading poetry
according to Tan (2001)

First, a poem differs from prose work in that it is to be read slowly,

carefully, and attentively. You need to read poems slowly, carefully and
attentively because you will not read it as it is but as a reader you have to go
beyond what it is. Reading a poem takes a lot of hard work because it requires
the reader to think critically, to imagine the images comprehensively, to analyze
Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 28
Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

and to interpret the theme connotatively.

Second is, a poem recreates an experience. Every time the reader will read
the poem several times. The reader is also recreating the poem by means of
extracting the different emotions, experiences, thoughts, ideas, etc. Reading the
poem once is not enough because as the reader reads it form the second time,
he or she will certainly unveil revelations from the poem that she happen to
oversee on the first reading. So, the moment the reader reads the poem over and
over again becomes more meaningful and sensible.

Third, the subject matter of poetry can be found in everything that

interests the human mind. It is very evident that subject matter adds sparks to a
poem because without it nothing will be talked about on the poem. Although it is
“only a part of the meaning” still it plays a vital role in understanding a poem. The
subject matter in a poem depends on the writer’s choice (variety of subjects).

Fourth, a poem presents a dramatic situation. In every poem there is

always a speaker that will give the reader the background of the poem. There is a
peculiar effect in reading the poem in either for private or for public audience
because of the presence of the sound effects devices, figurative languages, and
other elements of poetry that are not present from prose and drama. Also, the
conciseness and brevity of the language used in poetry takes greater advantage
as it is read. The dramatic effect in reading poetry is either intentionally or not
because as a reader the responsibility is solely on his/her shoulders. Most
especially if the poem is intended to be read publicly whether the reader likes it or
he has to read it dramatically because, the listeners will not thoroughly
understand the poem unless there is an element of art as the poem is being read.
Lastly, it is an act of speech that takes place in a particular setting on a particular
occasion.

TYPES OF POETRY
There are three types of poetry. These are lyric, narrative and dramatic.
Though they all follow similar elements but still each type has its own unique
nature.

Lyric Poetry
Originally, this 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 the poet. They are usually short, simple and
easy to understand. (Kahayon & Zulueta, 2009, p. 11) It is also described by
Sialogo (2007) as descriptive or expository in nature where the poet is concerned
mainly with presenting a scene in words, conveying sensory richness of his
subject, or the revelation of ideas or emotions. Then, Holman (1992) defined it as
a brief subjective poem strongly marked by imagination, melody, and emotion
and creating for the reader a single unified impression.
Lyric poetry is a poetry that deals with the personal feeling of the poet. It is a
subjective expression of man’s passion and emotion in artistic and musical
language. There are seven kinds of lyric poetry. They are the sonnet, songs, ode,
elegy, psalm, hymn and idyll. (Ramallosa, 2000, p. 15)
Kinds of Lyric Poems
A. Song
A lyric porm in a regular metrical pattern set to music. These have twelve syllables
(dodecasyllabic) and slowly sung to the accompaniment of a guitar or banduria. (Ang,
2012, p. 11)
A lyric poem adapted to musical expression. Song lyrics are usually short, simple
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Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
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sensuous, emotional - perhaps the most spontaneous lyric form. (Holman, 1992, p. 503)
B. Elegy
This is a lyric poem which expresses feelings of grief and melancholy, and whose
theme is death. (Kahayon and Zulueta, 2009, p. 13)
A poem written on the death of a friend or the poet. The ostensible purpose is to
praise the friend but the death prompts the writer to ask, “If death can intervene, so
cruelly in life, what is the point of living?” By the end of the poem, however, we can
expect that the poet will have come to terms with his grief. (Ang, 2012, p.10)
A sustained and formal poem setting forth the poet’s meditations upon death or
another solemn theme. (Holman, 1992, p. 183)
C. Sonnet
A lyric poem of fourteen lines, highly arbitrary in form and following one or another of
several set rhyme-schemes. (Holman, 1992, p. 503)
A lyric poem containing fourteen iambic lines, and a complicated rhyme. (Ang, 2012,
p. 11)

Rhyme schemes in Sonnets

ababcdcdefefgg - Shakesperian sonnet

abbaabba (cde,cde) - Italian or Petrarchan Sonnet
(cdc,cdc)
(cd,cd,cd)
D. Ode
In manner, the ode is an elaborate lyric, expressed in language dignified, sincere,
and imaginative and intellectual in tone. (Holman, 1992, p. 363)
A lyric poem of some length serious in subject in dignified style. It is most majestic of
the lyric poems. It is written in a spirit of praise of some persons or things. (Ang, 2012,
p.10)
This is a poem of a noble feeling, expressed with dignify, with no definite syllables or
definite number of lines in a stanza. (Kahayon and Zulueta, 2009, p. 14)
E. Psalm
This is a song praising God or the Virgin Mary and containing a philosophy of life.
(Kahayon and Zulueta, 2009, p. 14)
F. Hymn
A lyric poem expressing religious emotion and generally intended to be sung by a
chorus. (Holman, 1992, p. 260)
G. Idyll
Pastoral and descriptive elements are usually the first requisites of the idyll,
although the pastoral element is usually presented in a conscious literary manner.
(Holman, 1992, p. 263)
Narrative Poetry
This type of poetry tells a story in verse. It is a nondramatic poem which tells
a story or presents a narrative, whether simple or complex, long or short.
(Holman, 1992, p. 336)
This form describes important events in life either real or imaginary.
(Kahayon & Zulueta, 2009, p. 7)
Narrative poetry is an objective narration in verse. It is a poem that tells a
story, recounts an event or narrates an episode in the life of another person.
Narrative poetry has four kinds such as ballad, epic, metrical romance, and
metrical tale. (Ramallosa, 2000, P. 15)

Kinds of Narrative Poems

A. Epic
A long narrative poem of the largest proportions. A tale centering about a hero
concerning the beginning, continuance, and the end of events of great significance. (Ang,
2012 p. 10) This is an extended narrative about heroic exploits often under supernatural
control. It may deal with heroes and gods. (Kahayon & Zulueta, 2009, p. 7)
Holman (1992) classifies epic as folk epic and art epic. Epics without certain authorship
are called folk epics, whether the scholar believes in a folk or a single authorship theory of
origins. Art epic is a term sometimes employed to distinguish such an epic as Milton’s
Paradise Lost or Virgil’s Aenied from so called folk epics such as Beowulf, the Nibelungenlied,
and the Iliad and Odyssey.
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College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
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Common Characteristics of Folk Epic and Art Epic According to Holman

 The hero is a figure of imposing stature, of national or international importance, and of

great historical or legendary significance.
 The setting is vast in scope, covering great nations, the world, or the universe.
 The action consists of deeds of great valor or requiring superhuman courage.
 Supernatural forces - gods, angels, and demons - interest themselves in the action and
intervene from time to time.
 A style of sustained elevation and grand simplicity is used.
 The epic poet recounts the deeds of his heroes with objectivity.

B. Metrical Romance
A narrative poem that tells story of adventure, love, and chivalry. The typical hero
is a knight on a quest. (Ang, 2012 p. 10)
C. Metrical Tale
A narrative poem consisting usually of a single series of connective events that
are simple idylls or home tales, love tales, tales of the supernatural or tales written
for strong moral purpose in verse form. (Ang, 2012 p. 10)
D. Ballad
The simplest type of narrative poetry. It is a short narrative poem telling a single incident
in similar meter and stanzas. It is intended to be sung. (Ang, 2012 p. 10) Of the narratives
poems, this is considered the shortest and simplest. It has a simple structure and tells a
single incident. There are also variation of these: love ballads, war ballads, sea ballads,
humorous, moral, historical, or mythical ballads. In the early times, this referred to as a song
accompanying a dance. (Kahayon & Zulueta, 2009, p. 10)

Dramatic Poetry
It is a poem where a story is told through the verse dialogue of the characters
and a narrator. (Sialogo, et al., p. 15)
A term that, logically, should be restricted to poetry which employs form or
some element or elements of dramatic technique as a means of achieving poetic
ends. (Holman, 1992, p. 172)
The drama in verse is an artistic production involving real living people in a
performance. It is a story in poetic form revealed through speech and action. In
genera, there are only two kinds of drama: the tragedy and comedy. Modern
dramatists however made them four: tragedy, comedy, melodrama and farce.
(Ramallosa, 2000, p. 15)
(Refer to the lecture in finals for the comprehensive discussion of Drama)

ELEMENTS OF POETRY

1. Content/Subject –
 It is what is being talked about in the poem. Any subject can be great in a poem depending
on the poetic style of the poet.
 Dimalanta said that even generally considered banal or vulgar subjects become poetically
acceptable, handled artistically. (Gulle, 2003)

2. Theme
 This refers to the message/s of the poem. It is not easy to find theme in poetry. But, other
elements of poetry will assist the readers to generate the theme of the poem.

3. Mood
 This is the emotional atmosphere that poet wants the readers to feel. It helps the readers to
fully appreciate the poem. Also, it builds the credibility of subject and theme the poem.
 Willa Cather as cited by Holman (1992) said that mood as expression of the author’s attitude
becomes a control over the techniques of literary expression.

4. Imagery
 It is how the reader pictures the poem in his mind. The imagination that is evoked from the
collection of tangible images created by the poet. It refers to the pictures which we perceive
with our mind’s eyes, nose, tongue, skin, and through which we experiences the duplicate
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Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
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world created by poetic language. Imagery evokes meaning and truth of human experiences
not in abstract terms, as in philosophy, but in more perceptible and tangible forms. This is a
device by which the poet makes his meaning strong, clear and sure. The poet uses sound
words and words of color and touch in addition of Figures of Speech. Concrete details that
appeal to the reader’s senses are used as well build up images.
 It is the use of sensory details or descriptions that appeal to one or more of the five senses:
sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell. These are otherwise known as “senses of the mind”
(Sialongo, 2007, p. 9)
 More than a visual detail, imagery includes sounds, textures feel, odors, and sometimes
even tastes. Selection of concrete details is the poet’s of giving his reader a sensory image.
By means of images, the poet makes the reader think about the meaning of the meaning.
(Lacia & Gonong, 2003)

5.Symbols
 Once the writer mentioned images like “sun” “flower” “river” “mountain” “dreams” etc. as a
reader you will not accept those images as they are but convert them into higher level of
giving meaning. For instance, a sun may stand for enlightenment, knowledge, hope, etc.
depending on how it is used by the poet in the poem.

6. Sound Effect Devices

 It gives music to the ears of the readers. It avoids the poem to be monotonous in approach.
This makes the poem a kind of word-music. Some of the sound effect devices are also
identified as figure of speech since they nature create a ‘sound effect’

a. Rhyme
- Rime or rhyme is the similarity of sounds in the lines of poetry. It is often times found at
the end of the lines although there are also rhyme in the initial or middle part of the lines of
poetry. (Ramallosa, 2000, p. 15)
- It is the repetition of the same stressed vowel sounds and any succeeding sound in two
or more words. (Sialongo et al., 2007, p. 12)

b. Assonance
- It is the repetition of similar accented vowel sound. (Sialongo et al., 2007, p. 12)
Example
The bows glided down and the coast
Blackened with birds took a last look
At his thrashing hair and whale blue eye
The trodden town rang its cobbles for luck
Dylan Thomas
“Ballad of Long-Legged Bait”
c. Consonance
- It is the repetition of similar consonant sound typically within or at the end of
words.(Sialongo et al., 2007, p. 12)
Example
The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
Robert Frost
“Out-out”

d. Repetition
-A rhetorical device reiterating a word or phrase, or rewording the same idea, to secure
emphasis. (Holman, 1992, p. 446)

“Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light…

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Dylan Thomas
“Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”

e. Onomatopoeia
- It is the use of a word or phrase that actually imitates or suggests the sound of what it

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describes. (Sialongo et al., 2007, p. 11)

Example
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees.
Alfred Tennyson
“The Princess”

f. Alliteration
- You repeat the initial letter or sound in two or more nearby words. (Baker, 1976 p. 528)
- It is the repetition of similar and accented sounds at the beginning of words. (Sialongo
et al., 2007, p. 12)
Example
The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

7. Persona
 In every poem, there is always a character. It relies with the writer’s creativity in constituting
images and other literary devices to visibly introduce the character to the readers.

8. Speaker
 The speaker is the point of view in the poem. It is sometimes referred as the poet but it is not
all the time the poet is speaking. Poets may also create a persona who is the speaker in the
poem or can be both.

9. Shape and Form

 This refers to the structure of poems which can be structured or free verse. The structured
verse or metered verse pertains to poems that follow conventions of poetry in terms of rhyme
scheme, versification, rhythmic pattern, and others. Free verse was said to be introduced by
Walt Whitman, an American poet, which aimed to break free from the conventions in the
structure of poetry. According to Holman (1992), free verse is poetry that is based on the
irregular rhythmic cadence (measure) of the recurrence, with variations, of phrases, images
and syntactical patterns rather than the conventional use of meter.

10. Figurative Language

 Intentional departure from the normal order, construction, or meaning of words in order to
gain strength and freshness of expression, to create a pictorial effect to describe by analogy,
or discover and illustrate similarities in otherwise dissimilar things. (Holman, 1992, p. 223)

Examples:

Simile -
-Consists of comparing two things using the like or as. (Ang, 2012, p.11)
-uses a word or phrase such as “as” or “like” to compare seemingly unlike things or
ideas. (Sialongo, 2007, p. 11)
-is directly expressed comparison between two dissimilar objects by means of the word
like, as, or as if. (Lacia & Gonong, 2003, p. 4)

Examples:
Be beautiful, noble like the antique ant,
Jose Garcia Villa
“Be Beautiful, Noble, Like an Antique Ant”
His house was quiet, like the man who closed
Ricaredo Demetillo
“The Lover’s Death”
Metaphor
-gives an implied, not expressed, comparison to two unlike objects.
(Lacia & Gonong, 2003, p. 5)
-Uses direct comparison of two unlike things or ideas. (Ang, 2012, p.11)
-implies comparison instead of a direct statement and that equates two seemingly unlike
things or ideas. (Sialongo, 2007, p. 10)

Examples:
I am a candle of unpolluted wax
Lighted at the altar for God
Vicente de Jesus (Translated by Alfredo S. Veloso)
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Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
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“Teardrop”
The whole country was a boiling volcano
Amado V. Hernandez (translated by Jose Villa Panganiban)
“The Blacksmith”

Personification .
-Gives human traits to inanimate objects or ideas. (Ang, 2012, p.11)
-is giving human attributes/characteristics to inanimate objects, an animal, force of
nature, or an idea. (Sialongo, 2007, p. 11)
-gives an inanimate object or an abstract idea a human attribute or considers it a live
being. (Lacia & Gonong, 2003, p. 5)

Examples:
Let the wind with sad lament over me keen
Jose Rizal
“My Last Farewell’
The springs at my feet has tears welling
Jose Corazon De Jesus (translated by: Jose Villa Panganiban)
“Isang Punongkahoy” (Tree)
The night that weeps the death of day
Surprises me at times on the rough threshold
Claro M. Recto (Translated by: Alfred S. Veloso)
“My Nipa Hut”
Irony
-says the opposite of what is meant. (Ang, 2012, p.12)
-is a contrast or discrepancy between appearance and reality. (Sialongo, 2007, p. 10)
-method of humorous or subtly sarcastic expression in which intended meaning of the
words is the direct opposite of what is meant. (Lacia & Gonong, 2003, p. 6)

Examples:
Neither is man aware of the unkind
Flight of time; for, though it gives him life,
It is dragging him nearer his grave.
Juan Atayde
“The Man”
If all these men whose heads are with the stars,
Who dream unceasingly of blazing royalty,
Will only strive to be like you,
A dweller of the sod with the heart of royalty
Florizel Diaz
“To a Dog”

Allusion
- refers to any literary, biblical, historical, mythological, scientific, character or place.
(Ang, 2012, p.12)
- is a reference in a work of literature to a character, a place, or a situation from history,
literature, the Bible, mythology, scientific event, character or place.(Sialongo, 2007, p. 8)

Examples:
Let others give to Caesar Caesar’s own
Angela Manalang Gloria
“I Have Begrudged the Years”
Winds that Hades unleashes over me
Vicente de Jesus (Translated by Alfredo S. Veloso)
“Teardrop”

Paradox
- uses a phrase or statement that on surface seems contradictor, but makes some kind
of emotional sense. (Ang, 2012, p.12)
-is a phrase or statement that seems to be impossible or contradictory but is
nevertheless true, literally or figuratively. (Sialongo, 2007, p. 11)

Examples:

All sounds waved to the seasons

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Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
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Of living and dying pipe-smoke

Tita Lacambra-Ayala
“Wedding Song”
And the foam crept to the edges of darkness
Burning its inflammable garments…
(Grow, 1984. Modern Philippine Poetry in the Formative Years: 1920-1950. )
Hyperbole
-You exaggerate for emphasis, humorous or serious. (Baker, 1976, p. 525)
- is an exaggeration used to express strong emotion, to make a point, or to evoke
humor. (Sialongo, 2007, p. 10)
- exaggeration for effect and not to deceive or to be taken literally.
(Lacia & Gonong, 2003, p. 6)
Examples:
I vialed the universe
Leoncio P. Deriada
“I Vialed the Universe”
Shall I count the sands on the seashore,
Or pick the numberless stars in heaven
Benito F. Reyes
“You Ask Me How Much I Love You”
Synecdoche
-You put (a) the part for the whole, (b) the whole for the part, (c) the species for the
genus, (d) the genes for the species, (e) the material for the object it constitute. (Baker,
1976, p. 531)
- uses a part to represent the whole. (Ang, 2012, p.12)
-is the naming of parts to suggest the whole. (Sialongo, 2007, p. 12)

Examples:
Where are they --
The pointing hand,
The vibrant voice of high command
Aurelio Alvero
“Of Power”
And two kindred minds shall mark the hour as rare
Edith Tiempo
“Bibliophile”
Apostrophe
- “a turning away” “you turn away” from your audience to address someone new – God,
the angels, the dead, or anyone no present. (Baker, 1976, p. 523)
-is a direct address to someone absent, dead, or inanimate. (Ang, 2012, p.11)
-is an address to an inanimate object, an idea, or a person who is absent/long dead.
(Sialongo, 2007, p. 10)
-is an address to the absent as if were present or to somebody dead as if he were alive
or to inanimate things as if they were animated. (Lacia & Gonong, 2003, p. 5)

Example:
Bend me then, O Lord
Bend me if you can
Amador Daguio
“Man of Earth

Oxymoron
-“Pointed stupidity” You emphasize your point by the irony of an apparent contradiction
or inconsistency. (Baker, 1976, p. 524)
-puts together in one statement two contradictory terms. (Ang, 2012, p.13)
-is putting together two opposite ideas in one statement. (Sialongo, 2007, p. 11)
Examples:

living dead, wise fool, cruel kindness, exact estimate, deafening silence,
organized chaos, open secret, seriously funny, little giant

Metonymy
-You substitute an associated item for the thing itself. (Baker, 1976, p. 530)

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-substitutes a word that closely relates to a person or a thing. (Ang, 2012, p.11)
-a name of one thing used in place of another suggested or associated with it. It consists
in giving idea that is so closely associated with another. (Lacia & Gonong, 2003, p. 5)
-is the use of one word to stand for a related term or replacement or word that relates to
the thing or person to be named for the name itself. (Sialongo, 2007, p. 10)

Examples:
Naught will he find but snow and the ruins,
Ashes of love and the tomb of his friends
Jose Rizal (Translated by: Charles Derbyshire)
“Canto Del Viajero” (Song of the Traveller)
Between her brown lips,
A poem of sunrise
Oscar de Zuniga
“Love Song”

11. Stanza
 A recurrent grouping of two or more lines of a poem in terms of length, metrical form and
often rhyme-scheme. However, the division into stanzas is sometimes made according to
thought as well as form. (Holman, 1992, p. 508)
(refer to the table at the latter part of this lecture, for the different types of stanza)

12.Rhythm
 Rhythm is the musical arrangement of the accented and unaccented syllable in poetry.
(Ramallosa, 2000, p. 15)
 The passage of regular or approximately equivalent time intervals between definite events or
the recurrence of specific sounds or kinds of sounds or the recurrence of stressed or
unstressed syllables is called rhythm. (Holman, 1992, p. 456)

13. Foot
 Foot is the combination of accented and unaccented sound or syllables in the lines of poetry.
(Ramallosa, 2000, p. 15)
 In prosody (the theory and principles of versification), whether quantitative verse (verse
whose basic rhythm is determined by quantity, that is duration of sound in utterance) or
accentual syllabic verse (verse that depends both on the number of syllables in establishing
its rhythm), the concept of foot and the names by which various feet are known in English
prosody are borrowings from classical prosody, which has only quantitative verse.
(Holman, 1992, p. 229)

Foot Combinations:
Rising
Iambus or Iambic (ua combination)
A metrical foot consisting of an unaccented syllable and an accented. The most common
metrical measure on English verse. (Holman, 1992, p. 262)

Ex.
u a /u a/ u a/ u a
Come live / with me/ and be / my love
By: Christopher Marlowe
Anapest or Anapestic (uua combination)
A metrical foot in verse, consisting of three syllables, with two unaccented syllables
followed by an accented one. (Holman, 1992, p. 23)

Ex.
u u a / u u a /u u a / u u a
Like a child / from the womb, / like a ghost / from the tomb,

u ua /u u a /u ua
I arise / and unbuild / it again.
By: Percy Bysshe Shelley
The Cloud

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Southern Luzon State University
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Falling
Trochee or Trochaic (au combination)
A poetic foot consisting of an accented and unaccented syllable. (Holman,
1992, p. 539)

Ex.
a u /a u /a u /a u
Double,/ double,/ toil and / trouble,
a u/ a u / a u /a u
Fire/ burn and / cauldron bubble
By: William Shakespeare

Dactyl or Dactylic (auu combination)

A metrical foot consisting of one accented syllable followed by two accented syllables.
(Holman, 1992, p. 145)

Ex.
a uu /au u /a u u/ a uu / a u u/ a u
This is the/ forest prim/eval. The/ murmuring pines and the hemlocks
By: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Spondee or Spondaic (aa combination)

A foot composed of two accented syllables. Spondees on our oetry are usally composed of
two monosyllabic words as all joy! (Holman, 1992, p. 507)

Ex.
a a / a a
Cry, cry! / Troy burns, or else let Helen go
By: Wiliam Shakespeare

Pyrrhic (uu combination)

A foot of two unaccented syllables; the opposite of spondee. Common in classical poetry, the
pyrrhic is unusual in English versification and is not accepted as a foot at all by some prosodists
since it contains no accented syllable. (Holman, 1992, p. 429)

Ex.
uu u u
My way | is to | begin | with the | beginning.
By: Lord Byron

14. Meter
 Meter or measure in poetry refers to the regular recurrence of the accented and unaccented
syllables in the lines of poetry. (Ramallosa, 2000, p. 15)
 The recurrence in poetry of a rhythmic pattern, or the rhythm established by the regular or
almost regular occurrence of similar units of sound pattern. (Holman, 1992, p. 318)

A verse is classified as

monometer - 1 foot combination

dimeter - 2 feet combination octameter - 8 feet combination
trimeter - 3 feet combination nonameter- 9 feet combination
tetrameter - 4 feet combination decameter - 10 feet combination
pentameter - 5 feet combination
hexameter - 6 feet combination
heptameter - 7 feet combination

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The scansion below is based from the example of Queddeng (2013)

u a/u u a/ u ua/uu a/ u u a/
As unto a rose of ineffable beauty you are

Rhythm: uua (Most common in the group)

Foot: Anapest/Anapestic
Meter: Pentameter (number of combinations)

References:

Ang, J. G. ed. (2012). Literature 101. Intramuros, Manila: Mindshapers Co. Inc.
Baker, S. (1976). The Complete Stylist and Handbook. 3rd ed. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell
Company.
Baritugo, M. et al. (2007). Philippine Literature: An Introduction to Poetry, Fiction & Drama. Manila,
Philippines.
Grow, L. M. (1984). “Modern Philippine Poetry in the Formative Years: 1920 - 1950”. CAHSS
Faculty Articles. Nova Southeastern University.
Gulle, R. (2003). Frequently Asked Questions about Poetry: a Review and Discussion of Topics
from the Writers Workshops / Ophelia Dimalanta, Ph. D. and Gemino H. Abad, Ph.D. Manila:
UST Publishing House.
Holman, C. H. (1992) A Handbook to Literature 6th ed. Indiana:The Odyssey Press, Inc.
Kahayon, A. and C. A. Zulueta. (2009). Philippine Literature Through the Years. Mandaluyong
City: National Book Store.
Lacia, F. and G. O. Gonong. (2003). The Literatures of the World.Manila: REX Book Store, Inc.
Lewis, C. D. (1961). The Poetic Image. London: A.W. Bain & Co. Ltd.
Queddeng, G. (2013). Philippine Literature. Lucban, Quezon: Southern Luzon State University.
Ramallosa, G. (2000). The Literatures of the Philippines. Lucena City: Enverga University Press.
Sialongo, E. et al. (2007). Literatures of the World. Manila: REX Book Store, Inc.
Tan, A. B. (2001). Introduction to Literature. Quezon City: Academic Publishing Corporation.

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Lecture 4
Poetry in the Philippines

Overview:
Riddles or bugtong is a fun game for children because they are able to use
their imagination while enjoying the game. But, did you know that before bugtong
was part of many important social gatherings in the Philippines? In this lecture,
you will be able to know riddles and other poems as well as background of poetry
in the Philippines.

Objectives:
By the end of the lecture, students should have:

1. Understood the background of poetry in the Philippines

2. Realized the impact of history in Philippine poetry
3. Identified the different kinds of Philippine poetry
4. Learned how to analyze a poem

Scope of Lecture 4:

4. Poetry in the Philippines

5. Poetry Analysis
6. Poems for Reading and Analysis

Poetry in the Philippines

In the discussion of Del Castillo and Medina (2002) in Philippine Literature

From Ancient Times to the Present “Ancient poetry is an extension of earlier
cultures of Southeast Asia, the ancestral home of most Filipino Malays” Epics,
folk songs, epigrams, riddles, chants, maxims, proverbs or sayings were the
common forms of poems during the pre - Spanish period. These are the epics
which are still read and enjoyed; Bidasari, Biag ni Lam Ang, Maragtas, Haraya,
Lagda, Hari sa Bukid, Kumintang, Parang Sabir, Dagoy at Sudsod, Tatuaan,
Indarapata at Sulayman, Bantugan, Daramoke-A-Baybay. These folk epics are
described by Manuel in Lumbera and Lumberas’ (2005) discussion as “narratives
of sustained length, based on oral tradition, revolving around supernatural events
or heroic deeds, in the form of verse, which is either chanted or sung and with a
certain seriousness of purpose, embodying or validating the beliefs, customs,
ideals or life – values of the people”
According to Maramba (2006) “There are around 28 epics known or
identified. Most of the remaining epics have been found among the peoples
“untouched” by accularative processes i.e., indigenous and ethnic groups in the
Mountain Province and in Mindanao and among Muslims. The fewest are found
among the Christian peoples. What most probably happened in regions
Christianized by the Spaniards was that the native epics were displaced and
replaced by the Pasyon (sometimes and erroneously called the Tagalog epic) and
the metrical romances of European descent (also mistakenly referred to as
“epics”) Special mention must be made of Belgian Fathers Francisco Billiet and
Francis Lambrecht who have played great parts in the preservation of the
Mountain Province; no less of Father Francisco Demetrio S.J., E. Arsenio Manuel,
F. Landa Jocano, Sister Delia Coronel and others who have all done extensive
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College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
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research on our epics and folklore”

It is said that aside from epics, folk songs are also one of the oldest forms
of literature in the Philippines. Kahayon and Zulueta (2009) mentioned that the
folk songs in the pre – Spanish period were composed of 12 syllables. The
examples of these folk songs were; Kundiman (awit ng pag – ibig), Kumintang o
Tagumpay (war song), Ang Dalit o Imno (song to the god of the Visayans), Ang
Oyayi (lullaby), Diana (wedding song), Soliraning (song of the labourer), Talindaw
(boatman’s song), etc. The religious and political nature of Filipinos can be traced
to different folk songs. Del Castillo and Medina (2002) explained that “songs and
verses filled early religious practices: to express devotion, to atone for sins, to
minister to the sick, and to bury the dead…In like manner, verses aired love for
and loyalty to the barangay and its rulers. These were supplemented by accounts
of battle (kudanag), songs of victory (tagumpay, talindad), songs of hanging a
captured enemy (sambotan, tagulaylay) and songs expressive of manliness.”
Similar to folk songs, epigrams, riddles, chants, maxims, proverbs or
saying were being recited to different occasions. For instance riddles, they were
used in weddings, feasts, baptisms, mournings and other special gatherings.
Chants were used in witchcraft or enchantment.
Epigrams, riddles, maxims, proverbs or sayings are naturally witty.
Epigrams are like allegories or parables that give moral and philosophical lessons.
In creating epigrams there is no standard format but it is commonly composed of
two lines. Unlike in riddles and maxims, they follow versification, syllabication and
rhyme patterns. The former is made up of one or more measured lines with
rhyme and consists of four to twelve syllables. While the latter is in rhyming
couplets with verses of 5, 6 or 8 syllables, each line have the same number of
syllables.
Philippine Literature during Spanish period still continued to flourish.
Spaniards brought civilization in the Philippines including religion and education.
Some Filipinos were able to finish their formal education because there were
already schools which were built by the Spaniards. This development is can be
seen on the Spanish influences on Philippine literature.
In poetry, folk songs still existed during this period but it became more
widespread. Kahayon and Zulueta (2009) said that each region had its national
song from lowlands to mountains of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. The
examples these folk songs were Leron, Leron Sinta (Tagalog), Pamulinawen
(Iloko), Dandansoy (Bisaya), Sarong Banggi (Bicol), Atin Cu Pung Singsing
(Kapampangan), Kalusan (Batanes), Song of My Seven Lovers (Lanao), Mutya
Ko Paalam (Jolo), Sa Bundok (Kalinga), Pagbati (Tinguian) etc. Spaniards even
noticed the love of early Filipinos in singing. Diego Lopez Povedano in 1578 once
said, in his observation about early Filipinos, that “They (people of Negros) have
songs which tell about the lives of their warriors and ancestors, recount the life of
their great voyages” It was said that even Antonio Pigafetta, Magellan’s logkeeper,
also mentioned that Filipinos love to sing while singing in the Visayan seas. Early
Filipinos use musical instruments to accompany their songs. They used metal
bells and gongs. There were even times where they also used native musical
instruments like kudyapi or kulintang.
Aside from folk songs, metrical tales called Awit and Corrido were also
loved by early Filipinos. In Tagalog Awit and Corrido are both called buhay. But
most of the time Awit and Corrido were interchangeably used because of vague
distinction on their characteristics. Awit is in dodecasyllabic verse while Corrido is
in octosyllabic verse. The latter is referred to narration while the former is referred
to chanting. In terms of contents, Corridos were composed of legends or stories
from European countries like Spain, France, Italy and Greece. Awit is purely from
writers’ imagination.
The known writers of buhay are Francisco Balagtas, Jose de la Cruz,
Roman de los Angeles and Pascual Poblete, Pedro Aranas, D.V. Buenaventura,
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Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
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Esteban Castillo, SImplicio Flores, Marcelo P. Garcia, Cleto H. Ignacio, Nemesio

Magboo, Florendo Rivera, Angel de los Reyes, Padre Joaquin Tuazon and
Juanito Castillo.

“Over to hundred and fifty names found in the pages of the buhays. Most of the heroes
and heroines belong to the nobility, some to the middle class; and others to the underprivileged
few are Muslims Filipinos. Some are shepherds; others orphans and abandoned children. Some
tales deal with the famous bird, locally known as the Ibong Adarna, and of the fabulous Kay
Calabasa. The most adventurous and daring heroes of these metrical tales were the princes,
followed by the kings, then the dukes and the dons; and finally by the brave palace captains…The
princesses on the other hand, were the universal objects of spirited adventure, giving occasion to
many blood-curdling combats. ”
Del Castillo and Medina (2002)

Here are the famous males characters in buhays namely; Bernardo Carpio,
Doce Pares, Siete Infantes de Lara, Don Juan Tinoso, Don Juan Tenorio, Don
Gonzalo de Cordova, Duque Almanzor, King Asuero, Principe Alfredo, King
Adrian, Don Juan del Prado, Don Jose Flores, Principe Ludovico, Principe
Orentis, Principe Reynaldo, Don Rodrigo de Vivar, Conde Serrano, Conde
Urbano, Duke Crisauro and many others. The famous female characters in
buhays are Dona Maria of Jerusalem, Queen Tenoga of Antioch, Princess
Armolenda of Bohemia, Queen Cleotilde, Queen Elvira, Princess Aurea, Princess
Pantinople, Dona Inez, Dona Beatriz, Princess Gloriana, Dona Rogeria of
Barcelona, Princess Rogeria of Turkey, Princess Zuloma of Granada, Princess
Virginia of Turkey, Infanta Florcepida, Dona Maria of Asturias, Dona Maria of
Murcia, Dona Blanca of Valencia, Princess Isberta of Berbana, Dona Maria of
Austria, Dona Maria of Alexandria, Dona Maria of Cartage, Queen Telestres of
Temesita, Princess Florisita of Ireland, Queen Ginebra, Princess Rosamunda,
Princess Teofila of Armenia and many others.
Aside from buhays and folk songs, poetry during the Spanish period was
also about patriotism and nationalism. This period was called “The Period of
Enlightenment”. It was from 1872 to 1898. The writers during the Period of
Enlightenment were led by Jose Rizal, Marcelo H. Del Pilar and Graciano Lopez
Jaena, the pioneers of the Propaganda Movement. Jose Rizal wrote A La
Juventud Filipina (To the Filipino Youth), Mi Piden Versos (You Asked Me for
Verses), A Las Flores De Heidelberg (To the Flowers of Heidelberg), Mi Ultimo
Adios (My Last Farewell), etc. Marcelo H. Del Pilar also wrote poems like
Dasalan at Tocsohan(Prayers and Jokes), Sagot sa Espanya sa Hibik ng
Pilipinas(Answer to Spain on the Plea of the Filipinos), Dupluhan, Dalit, Mga
Bugtong(A poetical contest in narrative sequence, psalms, riddles), etc.
The other propagandists during the Period of Enlightenment were Antonio
Luna, Mariano Ponce, Pedro Paterno, Jose Ma. Panginiban, Andres Bonifacio,
Emilio Jacinto, Apolinario Mabini, Jose Palma, etc.
After the Period of Enlightenment, it was followed by The American
Regime. It was from 1898 to 1941. This period was divided into three kinds;
Literature in Spanish, Filipino Literature and Philippine Literature in English.
Spanish and Tagalog were the dominating languages used by the Filipino writers
during early years of American period. It was only in 1910 when English was used
as literary language. Writers who write in Spanish were mostly about nationalism
in recognition to Rizal and other heroes’ contribution for Philippines’ liberty. These
writers were Cecilio Apostol (A Rizal), Fernando Ma. Guerrero (Invocacion A
Rizal), Jesus ‘Batikuling’ Balmori, Claro M. Recto (Ante El Martir!), Adelina
Guerrea (El Nido), etc.
For Filipino Literature, Balmaceda in Kahayon and Zulueta classified three
kinds of Tagalog poets. They were Poets of the Heart (Makata sa Puso), Poets of
Life (Makata ng Buhay), and Poets of the Stage (Makata ng Tanghalan). Filipino
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Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
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poetry existed for a century and four decades though it was brief it still marked in
the hearts and minds of the Filipinos.
Philippine Literature in English is divided into three periods. They were
Period Re-orientation (1898 - 1910), The Period of Imitation (1910 – 1925), and
The Period of Self-Discovery (1925-1941). Since English language was still new
to Filipino writers, it was said that not much of literary worth was produced during
the Period of Re-orientation. Writers who write in English were still trying to
master how to write in English. For poetry, Sursum Corda by Justo Juliano was
the first published poems written in English. Then it was followed by Jan F.
Salazar’s My Mother and Air Castles in 1909. Also, on the same year, Proceso
Sebastian wrote his poem To My Lady in Laoag. The Period of Imitation is
undoubtedly the period of imitation. Writers during this time patterned their style
to some American writers like Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, John Irving, etc. The pioneers of English
poetry were Victoriano Yamson, Vidal A. Tan, Maximo Kalaw, Francisco M. Africa,
Jose M. Hernandez, etc. The last period is a contrast of the second period. The
writers had already acquired mastery and competence in the English language.
The poets during this period were Marcelo de Gracia Concepcion, Jose Garcia
Villa, Angela Manalang Gloria, Abelardo Subido, Trinidad Tarrosa Subido, and
Rafael Zulueta da Costa. It was said that they did not only write love poems but
they also included other possible themes like religious poems. Jose Garcia Villa
was one of those poets who tried to create unconventional poems in terms of
forms and themes.
The American Regime was followed by The Japanese Period (1941-1945).
After acquiring mastery in writing poems in English, poets were forced to write in
Filipino. Filipino poetry during this period was about nationalism, religion and arts.
The three types of poems arose during this period were; Haiku, Tanaga and
Karaniwang Anyo. Haiku and Tanaga were both lyric poems. Haiku is composed
of three lines with five syllables on the first and third lines and seven syllables on
the second line. Tanaga is patterned to Haiku, it has also 17 syllables but has
measure and rhyme.
English language does not sleep for long. When Americans came back in
1945, Philippine Literature in English was again back in action. There were more
and more poems were written and published including the following works; Heart
of the Islands by Manuel Viray, Philippines Cross Section by Maximo Ramos and
Florentino Valeros, Prose and Poems by Nick Joaquin, etc. Filipinos continue to
write and to love literature.
Aside from English there were still poets who write in Tagalog. Most of the
subjects and themes were about Japanese cruelties and its effects to the Filipino
people. It was said that “The people’s (Filipinos)love for listening to poetic jousts
increased more than before and people started to flock to places to hear poetic
debates”
Poetry in the Philippines continues to flourish. It becomes a vehicle for
Filipino youths to be heard and be heard. Poetry played important role in the
Period of Activism from 1970 – 1972. Youth led the country to cry for freedom
because of the oppression during the Martial Law in 1972. It was a total literary
revolution not only on poetry but also on the other genres of literature. Most of the
themes during this period were pertained to Marcos administration. Jose F.
Lacaba in Kahayon and Zulueta’s book described this period as “The first quarter
of the year 1970…It was a glorious time, a time of terror and of wrath, but also a
time of hope. The signs of change were on the horizon. A powerful storm whose
inexorable advance on earthly force could stop, and the name of the storm was
history..”
After a decade of military rule, there were already some changes in the
lives of the Filipino people. But it still cannot be denied that there were still
suppression and oppression. The common form of poetry during the Third
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College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
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Republic were songs. It was the period of realism. Most of the songs dealt with
grief, poverty, freedom, etc. because the whole nation grieved over Ninoy
Aquino’s death. There was even a revival of Jose Corazon de Jesus and C. de
Guzman’s Bayan Ko just to show the love for country and fellowmen. It was sung
and revived by Freddie Aguilar. This way of writing stays until 1986. The song
Bayan Ko remained to be the favourite song of the Filipinos.
After those atrocious chapters of Philippine history, lives of the Filipinos
continue to go on similar to its literature. Through the years, poetry in Philippines
managed to keep up despite all the hurdles. Filipinos still aspire and inspire to
write meaningful and artistic poems.

Poetry Analysis

The lecture for poetry analysis was adapted from the discussion of Gomez,
How to Read a Poem cited by Ang (2012). Then, it will be followed with a sample
reading and analysis of the poem entitled The Portrait written by Stanley Kunitz.
The poem was not from Philippine poetry because sole purpose of its use in this
discussion was to show how to read and analyze a simple lyric poem.

HOW TO READ A POEM

1. Read the poem aloud

Always do this so you can hear the sound of the poem and get a sensory
feel of it. The net effect, too, is that you hone your auditory imagination.
2. When you read a poem, start with just the text:
a. On the most literal level of meaning, what’s going on or what is the poem
about?
b. To read the text in other ways, or to go beyond the literal meaning,
examine:
 Images - to examine images, imagine them. What do they look, taste, feel
sound or smell like?
 Metaphors - are generally a matter of comparing on thing to another.
 Tone of voice - comes from choice of words diction, syntax, rhythm.
 Structure of the poem - which mark shifts in thought, the way paragraphs do
and stanzas how lines are cut, every line is a unit of meaning, in free verse.
There are two basic line cuts : end-stopped where lines are cut at its natural
syntactical cut or where there is punctuation.
 Rhyme and meter
 Choice of words or diction

3. Other points of words or diction

Apparently in poetry, the syllable, word, line and stanza constitute units of
meaning.
Punctuation and line cuts (whether punctuated or not) imply pauses of
various lengths. A period is the longest pause and gives a line a sense of
finality, a comma is shorter, etc. When you look the line, remember that the
first and last words have the greatest weight, i.e. there is an emphasis.

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 43

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
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SAMPLE READING

The Portrait
By: Stanley Kunitz

My mother never forgive my father

for killing himself,
especially at such an awkward time
and in a public park,
That spring
When I was waiting to be born.
She locked his name
in her deepest cabinet
and would not let him out,
though I could hear him thumping.
When I came down from the attic
with the pastel portrait in my hand
of a ling-lipped stranger
with a brave mustache
and deep brown level eyes,
she ripped it into shreds
without a single word
and slapped me hard
In my sixty-fourth year
I can feel my cheek
still burning.
Literal Level Notes:
 Basic Situation
A family
3 people
Father, mother, child
Father killed himself in public before the child was born.
“mother” never forgives “father”
Child senses: “mother” still thinks about and feels for “father” and
“mother” slaps child and tears photo
Years later, child still remembers the slapping

 Persona
Speaker in the poem is the child
Sex or gender of the child is not explicit in the text

 No specific setting or time or atmosphere, except the narrative of the poem

takes place in some country where there are focus seasons (spring)

Beyond the Literal Level

A. Suicide
 Father commits suicide and no explicit reason is given in the text.
 Studies on the suicides show that in most cases, the person who kills himself
or herself leaves no clear no reason for doing so; the effect on others is a
complex of emotions including guilt and anger and grief over sudden,
unexpected death.
 Suicide had been said to be the most painful thing one person can do to
another because it is complete and utter rejection of other’s love and
personhood.
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Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
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B. There are three relationships implied in the text:

Husband and wife
Father and child
Mother and child

1. Father and child

 Child grows without a father; longing is implied int child’s
scrounging around in the attic and retrieving photo.
 The child looking in the attic (the highest, most remote and
unused part of the house)

2. Husband and wife

My mother never forgave my father
For killing himself

 Mother never quite gets over the whole thing

 Consider the enjambed line: the line ends with “father” , not only
do the two lines talk about how the mother never quite gets over
the father’s suicide, but also, because the lines with “father” the
first line implies that relationship between mother and father - that
mother never forgave the father, period. There is a hint here
about the character of the mother being “unforgiving” or in all
probability difficult to live with, not necessarily meaning that she
was the cause of the father’s suicide, but that their relationship
wasn’t exactly the happiest one.

3. Mother and child

 Mother’s mode of communicating with child-well, she doesn’t
really, she keeps her feeling to herself, and when she sees the
child with the photo, she reacts violently and without explanation:
child knows father lingers in mother’s heart:
She locked his name
In the deepest cabinet
And would not let him out,
Though I could hear him thumping
 Years after the slapping (when the child id close to retirement at
64), the relationships and even itself remain unresolved in the
child.

C. Other Formal Elements

1. Tone of VOice - detached, questioning tone, with some emphasis on the

mother slapping the child - note the line cuts:
She ripped it into shreds
Without a single word
And slapped me hard

The above lines are cuts at the natural syntactical moments (had above
been a sentence). These syntactical moments are also moments in the event
itself: she rips the photo, says nothing, slaps the child. The event is extremely
memorable. The moments of pause/emphasis/weight within the poem.

Despite the seeming detachment, the child has some unresolved ill
feelings toward the mother, perhaps even blaming the mother for the father’s
suicide. We see this especially because the description of the man in the
portrait is flattering one:
Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 45
Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
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With a brave mustache

And deep brown level eyes

2. Dominant metaphor

The main metaphor, we take from the title, the portrait, the portrait is a
photo of a person, usually a photo that attempts to capture the character of
the person. Of course, photos are flat icons of a person, place, thing,
event,etc. They don’t capture the essence of the person, place, event, etc.
They don’t capture emotional content.
So, what you have in the photo is both presence ( in the form of icon) and
absence (in the lack of essence or emotional content). The photo is a
metaphor for the father’s continuing “presence” in their lives in the form of
remnants and memories, and “absence” because he is literally dead.

Photos have the power to trigger memory. This is why the mother slaps
the child. But in the child’s case, there is no memory to trigger. The slapping
becomes the child’s key family memory (family meaning “father, mother,
child”), and this is why the whole thing remains unresolved in the child.

It is important to note that in analyzing poems, readers should also

consider other elements in poetry like theme, symbol, and other literary
devices. They can also include the background of the author. However,
Gomez (nd) said that never take the author’s gender or sex of the poem’s
persona; never take the author as the main character of the person/speaker
of the poem even if the author uses the first person point of view. The only
exception to this way of reading is when the poem belong to the “confessional
poetry” genre - like the poems of Path and Sexton, for example.
Paraphrasing in prose translation each verse in order to get the literal
meaning is also helpful in getting the deeper meaning of the poem.

Example:

Original poem “All Things Can Tempt Me” A paraphrased version of “All Things Can
by W. B. Yeats Tempt Me” by W. B. Yeats
All things can tempt me from this craft of verse: Anything can distract me from writing poetry
One time it was a woman’s face, or worse— Once I was distracted by a woman’s face, but I
was even more distracted
The seeming needs of my fool-driven land;
By the requirements of my country which is
Now nothing but comes readier to the hand governed by idiots.
Than this accustomed toil… At this point in my life, I find any task easier
Then the work, I’m used to doing

Source: http://www.paraphraseexample.org/one-reasonable-online-paraphrasing-service/example-of-paraphrasing-a-poem/

Furthermore, Queddeng (2013) listed the following for the content of written
poetry analysis.
1. Definition/discussion of the classification
2. Background of the author
3. Oral reading
4. Paraphrase
5. Interpretation
6. Imagery (illustration or description)
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College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
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7. Mood
8. Rhythm, foot, meter
9. Rhyme/stanzaic form
10. Subject matter
11. Theme
12. Tradition
13. Literary devices

Lastly, readers can refer to various literary theories to support their analysis
and justify their criticism.

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 47

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
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Poems for Reading and Analysis

The Secret Language

By: Luisa Igloria

Originally from Baguio City in the Philippines, LUISA A. IGLORIA is the author of 14 books of poetry and 4
chapbooks. She has four daughters and now makes her home in Virginia with most of her family. She is a Professor of
Creative Writing and English, and from 2009-2015 was Director of the MFA Creative Writing Program at Old Dominion
University. In the Spring Term 2018, she was the inaugural Glasgow Visiting Writer in Residence at Washington & Lee
University.
Her work has appeared or been accepted in numerous anthologies and journals including New England Review,
The Common, Poetry, Crab Orchard Review, The Missouri Review, Indiana Review, Poetry East, Umbrella, Sweet,
qarrtsiluni, poemeleon, Smartish Pace, Rattle, The North American Review, Bellingham Review, Shearsman (UK), PRISM
International (Canada), Poetry Salzburg Review (Austria), The Asian Pacific American Journal, and TriQuarterly.
Various national and international literary awards include the 2019 Crab Orchard Open Competition Award for
Poetry; the 2018 Center for the Book Arts Letterpress Chapbook Prize selected by former US Poet Laureate Natasha
Trethewey; the 2018 Bridport Poetry Prize/UK (second prize); the 2015 (inaugural) Resurgence Poetry Prize (the world’s
first major ecopoetry award), the 2014 May Swenson Poetry Prize selected by Mark Doty for ODE TO THE HEART
SMALLER THAN A PENCIL ERASER (Utah State University Press, 2014); the 2009 Ernest Sandeen Poetry Prize
for JUAN LUNA’S REVOLVER (University of Notre Dame Press); the 2007 49th Parallel Poetry Prize selected by
Carolyne Wright for the Bellingham Review; the 2007 James Hearst Poetry Prize selected by former US Poet Laureate
Ted Kooser for the North American Review; Honorable Mention in the 2010 Potomac Review Poetry Contest; Finalist in
the first Narrative Poetry Contest (2009); Finalist, the 2007 Indiana Review Poetry Prize; the 2006 National Writers Union
Poetry Prize selected by Adrienne Rich; the 2006 Richard Peterson Poetry Prize (Crab Orchard Review); the 2006
Stephen Dunn Award for Poetry; Finalist, the 2005 George Bogin Memorial Award for Poetry (Poetry Society of America);
the 2004 Fugue Poetry Prize selected by Ellen Bryant Voigt; Finalist, the 2003 Larry Levis Editors Prize for Poetry from
The Missouri Review; Finalist, the 2003 Dorset Prize (Tupelo Press); the first Sylvia Clare Brown Fellowship, Ragdale
Foundation (2007); a 2003 partial fellowship to the Summer Literary Seminars in St. Petersburg; two Pushcart Prize
nominations; a 1998 Fellowship at the Hawthornden Castle International Retreat for Writers in Lasswade, the Midlothians,
Scotland; and the 1998 George Kent Award for Poetry.
Luisa is an eleven-time recipient of the Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature in three genres (poetry,
nonfiction, and short fiction) and its Hall of Fame distinction; the Palanca award is the Philippines’ highest literary prize.
Source: http://www.luisaigloria.com/bio/

23 Fine enough to lay upon the

1 I have learned your speech altar
2 Fair stranger; for you 24 Of a cathedral in Europe.
3 I have oiled my hair 25 But this is a place
4 And coiled it tight 26 That I will never see.
5 Into a braid as thick
6 And beautiful as a serpent 27 I cooked the tourists at an in
7 In your story of Eden 28 They praise my lemon pie
29 And my English, which they
8 For you, I have covered say
9 My breasts and hidden, 30 Is faultless. I smile
10 Among the folks of my 31 And look past the window,
surrendered 32 Imagining father’s and
11 Inheritance, the beads grandfather’s cattle
12 I have sworn since girlhood. 33 Grazing by the smoke trees.
34 But it is evening, and these
13 It is fifty years now 35 Are ghosts
14 Since the day my father
15 Took me to the school in Bua 36 In the night.
16 A headman’s terrified 37 When I am alone at last,
17 Peace – gift. In the doorway 38 I lie uncorseted
18 The teacher stood, her hair 39 Upon the iron bed
19 The bleached color of corn, 40 Composing my lost beads
20 Watching with bird’s eyes. 41 Over my chest, dreaming back
42 Each flecked and opalescent
21 Now, I am Christina. 43 Color, crooning the names,
22 I am told I can make lace 44 Along with mine:
45 Binaay, Binaay.

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 48

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
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Dangday Ay
Translated by Sr. Lilia Tolentino, SPC

Wherever I am,
My thoughts shall always be with you,
Believe me, when I tell you,
There is something in this peace
That I experience
Which you, too, probably feel,
There is no one that I ever adored but you.

There is a wilting flower.

Imagine it when it was in bloom.
The flowers may fade away
But my love for you never will,
If you care, let us then live together.

If I were a hawk,
I would fly to the highest mountain,
Even from a distant place,
Yes, from another village,
Just to be able to reach you
In the land of Kalinga.

Dumheb Ako Dumanis

Translated by: Florentino H. Hornedo

I hide my face and weep, for when I see

All my childhood friends,
They all have grown taller
Than tops of the trees in the chipuhu
And nunuk groves
But I, poor me, have not grown taller than
The blades of grass on the pasture.
Now, I am like the cast-away
Driftwood which none of my cousins
Will ever find and bring home.

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 49

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

Bonsai
Edith Tiempo

Edith Tiempo is a National Artist for Literature. She is a poet, short story writer, novelist, literary critic and
teacher. Writers who have attended the Siliman National Writers Workdhop know her simply as “Mom”. She and her
equally eminent husband, the late Dr. Edilberto k. Tiempo, co-founded the workshop in 1962 and have since guided
and inspired many writers. She holds M.A. in Creative Writing from the State University of Iowa, and a Ph. D. from
the University of Denver. Among her numerous works are three collections of poetry: Tracks of Babylon (1966),
Beyond, Extensions (1992) and The Charmer’s Box (1993) Her novels include A Blade of Fern (1978), His Native
Coast (1979; First Prize, CCP Award for the Novel) and Alien Corn (1993). Her other honors and awards is the
Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas (UMPIL award/ Balagtas Bicentennial National Achievement Literary
Award) which she ahd her husband received in 1988.
All that I love
(Source: Baritugo, Caranguian, Punsalan & Solmerano, Philippine Literature: An Introduction to Poetry, Fiction & Drama, 2007)

I fold over once

And once again
And keep in a box
Or a slit in a hollow post
Or in my shoe

All that I love?

Why, yes but for the moment-
And for all time, both.
Something that folds and keeps easy,
Son’s note, or Dad’s one gaudy tie,
A roto picture of a young queen
A blue Indian shawl, even
A money bill.
It’s utter sublimation,
A feat, this heart’s control
Moment to moment
To scale all love down
To a cupped hand’s size.

Till seashells are broken pieces

From God’s own bright teeth,
All life and love are real
Things you can run and
Breathless hand over
To the merest child.

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 50

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

Jolography
by: Paulo Manalo

Paolo Manalo is an assistant professor of English, literature and creative writing at the University of the
Philippines-DiIiman where he has recently pioneered a special topics course on online writing. His poetry has
been published in several Filipino and international journals and magazines, including The Literary Review: An
International Journal of Contemporary Writing, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and the Arts and Tenggara:
Journal of Southeast Asian Literature. These are collected in his first book, Jolography (University of the
Philippines Press, 2003) and have won him the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature (2002) and
the Up Gawad Chanselor (2004). He is also the literary editor of the Philippine Free Press.
(Source: Baritugo, Caranguian, Punsalan & Solmerano, Philippine Literature: An Introduction to Poetry, Fiction & Drama, 2007))

O, how dead you child are,

Whose spoiled sportedness as is being
Fashion showed

Beautiful as we speak - in Cubao

There is that same look: Your crossing
Ibabaw,

Your Nepa Cute, Wednesdays

Baclaran, “Please pass. Kindly ride on.”

Tonight will be us tomorrowed -

Lovers of the Happy Meal and its H,

Who dream of the importedness of sex

As Long as it’s
Pirated and under a hundred, who can smell

A Pasig River on a dance club. O, the toilet

Won’t flush, but we are moved, doing the gerby

In plastic bag; we want to feel the grooves

Of the records, we want to hear some scratch -

In a breakaway movement, we’re the shake

To the motive of pockets, to the max.

The change is all in the first jeep

Of the morning’s route. Rerouting

This city and its heart attacks; one minute faster

Than four o’clock, and the next

Wave that stands out in the outdoor crowd

Hanging with a bunch of yo-yos

A face with an inverted cap on, wearing all

Smiles the smell of foot stuck between the teeth

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 51

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

To the Man I Married

by Angela Manalang-Gloria

Angela Manalang-Gloria of Guagua, Pampanga is an important lyric poet during the Commonwealth. Her
creative efforts found publication in Manila’s leading papers, particularly the Philippines Herald and the Philippine
Magazine. Poems, her book of poetry, consists of seventy-one poems. A literary monument, Poems was first
published in 1940 and reissued in 1950. Her significant poems are well-anthologized.
(Source: Del Castillo & Medina, Philippine Literature Through Ancient Times to the Present, 2002)

I
You are my earth and all the earth implies:
The gravity that ballasts me in space,
The air I breathe, the land that stills my cries
For food and shelter against devouring days.
You are the earth whose orbit marks my way
And sets my north and south, my east and west,
You are the final, elemented clay
The driven heart must turn to for its rest.
If in your arms that hold me now so near
I lift my keening thoughts to Helicon
As trees long rooted to the earth uprear
Their quickening leaves and flowers to the sun,
You who are earth, O never doubt that I
Need you no less because I need the sky!
II
I cannot love you with a love
That outcompares the boundless sea,
For that were false, as no such love
And no such ocean can ever be.
But I can love you with a love
As finite as the wave that dies
And dying holds from crest to crest
The blue of everlasting skies.

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 52

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

The Other Woman

by Francisco A. Arcellana

Francisco Arcellana is a writer, poet, essayist, critic, journalist, teacher, one of the most important progenitors
of the modern Filipino short story in English and a National Artist for Literature. He pioneered the development of the
short story as a lyric prose-poetic form. For Arcellana, the pride of fiction is “that it is able to render truth, that it is able
to present reality.” He has kept live the experimental tradition in fiction, and has been most daring in exploring new
literary forms to express the sensibility of the Filipino people. A brilliant craftsman, his works are now an
indispensable part of a tertiary-level-syllabi all over the country
(Source: Ang, Literature 101 Philippine Literatures, 2012)

I have watched her in stillness,

how still and white and long.
I have followed her about with my eyes,
how silent and swift and strong.
When she is still, it is musical.
When she moves, it is a song.
I have looked at her fearlessly,
openly, and without shame:
it is quite true that I desire you,
it is quite true that lust is my name.
I know, I always know where she is,
when she is around and about:
it is in my body like a shout.

soft hair, white brow, eyes young

nose fine, sweet lips, sweet mouth, tongue
proud chin, neck white, graceful, long
downy nape, smooth, shoulders strong
under the arms soft, arms long
sweet and exquisite, white and strong
wrist small and supple
hands neat, exquisite
fingers - petals of the lotus
breasts like apples
white body shining, sweet and long
hips broad and ample, wide and strong
thighs like pillars, white and long
legs like cedars, firm and strong
feet that are sweet
toes like the rose

I know her name, I have called to her

but she does not hear, she will not listen.
I call to her but she does not come.
The Lord is my shepherd but I want.

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 53

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

He Who Sleeps on My Lap

by Ronald Baytan

Ronald Baytan holds a Ph. D in English Studies Creative Writing) from the University of the Philippines. He
obtained his MA in language and Literature, with High Distinction, from De La Salle University - Manila in 1996. He
co-edited Bongga Ka ‘Day: Pinoy Gay Quotes to Live By (Milflores Publishing ) with J. Neil C. Garcia and Ralph
Semino Galan.
(Source: Ang, Literature 101 Philippine Literatures, 2012)

My friend
who sleeps on my lap
loves someone else.
He says he is a man
and a man needs a woman
and I disagree.
We argue until he grows
tired of talking
and sleeps on my lap

on this chilly night.

And I sigh,
knowing he loves
someone else
but still sleeps
gently on my lap,
innocent, not knowing
that I am here
slaughtering
one wicked wish
that when he wakes up
I shall be his dream.

References:

De Dios, L. et al. (2011). Literatura ng Iba’t Ibang Rehiyon ng Pilipinas. Metro Manila: Grand Books Publishing, Inc.
Del Castillo, Teofilo and Buenaventura S. Medina, Jr. (2002). Philippine Literature From Ancient Times to the Present.
Caloocan City: Philippine Graphic Arts, Inc.
Gomez, C. (nd).How to Read a Poem. Literature 101: Philippine Literatures. p.240-244.
Kahayon, A. H. and C. A. Zulueta. (2000). Philippine Literature Through the Years.
Mandaluyong City: National Bookstore.
Maramba, A. D. ed. (2006). Early Philippine Literature: From Ancient Times to 1940. Pasay City: Anvil Publishing Inc.
Queddeng, G. (2013). Philippine Literature. Lucban, Quezon: Southern Luzon State University.
Santiago, L. Q.(2007). Mga Panitikan ng Pilipinas. Quezon City: C&E Publishing Inc.
Tan, A. B. (2001). Introduction to Literature. Quezon City: Academic Publishing Corporation.
Lumbera, B. and C. N. Lumbera. (2007). Philippine Literature: A History and Anthology. 10th ed. Pasay City: Anvil
Publishing Inc.

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 54

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

Activity
and
Assessment

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 55

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

Name___________________________________ Date______________

Course/year/section________________________

ACTIVITY 1
Instructions: Give your definition of Literature by completing the spelling of the
word. Confer words/phrases that start with each letter of LITERATURE.

L_____________________________________

I _____________________________________

T _____________________________________

E _____________________________________

R _____________________________________

A _____________________________________

T _____________________________________

U _____________________________________

R _____________________________________

E _____________________________________

In this activity, you work will be assessed using the criteria below.

Choice of Words (10 pts.) _______________

Clarity of Ideas (10 pts.) _______________
Over-all Impact (10 pts.) _______________
Total:

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 56

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

Name___________________________________ Date______________

Course/year/section________________________

ACTIVITY 2
Instructions: Write an essay about your point of view to the importance of studying
Philippine Literature. In writing your essay, be guided with the rubric below.

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Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 57
Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

_________________________________________________________________________
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Criteria Excellent Good Fair Poor Score

25-20 19-15 14-10 9-1
Clarity of the The explanation Some of the Few of the Most of the
essay is clear and explanation is explanation is clear explanation is not
concise. clear and not and not concise clear and not
concise concise.
Explanation The explanation The is explanation The explanation is The explanation is
is comprehensive somehow somehow unacceptable.
and complete. comprehensive comprehensive and
but complete. incomplete.
Total

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 58

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

Name___________________________________ Date______________

Course/year/section________________________

ACTIVITY 3
Instructions: Look for a simple definition of poetry. Then, explain briefly the meaning of the
definition that you will find. Do not forget to cite your reference on where you get it (title of the
book or online source) as well as the name of the person you are quoting. There is a rubric
below for you to be guided on how you will be graded in this activity.

Definition of Poetry:
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Reference:_________________________________________________________________________________

Explanation

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Criteria Excellent Good Fair Poor Score

10-9 8-5 4-3 2-1
Details Explanation Only explanation Only definition and Only definition is
definition and and definition are reference are given. given.
reference are given. (No explanation) (No explanation
given. (No reference) and reference)
Explanation The explanation The is explanation The explanation is The explanation is
is comprehensive somehow somehow unacceptable.
and complete. comprehensive comprehensive and
but complete. incomplete.
Total

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 59

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

Name___________________________________ Date______________

Course/year/section________________________

ACTIVITY 4
Instructions:

Test your knowledge in figure of speech by identifying each item below. Write your
answer on the space provided.

______________________1. The window screen is trying to do its crossword

puzzle but appears to know only vertical words.

______________________2. My sister uses so much make up that when she

takes it off, my mom doesn’t recognize her.

______________________3. I am afraid of you yellow moon.

______________________4. I’ll give you a definite maybe.

______________________5. Life is but an empty dream.

______________________6. The stages of love are like tapping stones to death.

______________________7. Her presence was a roomful of flowers but her

absence is an empty bed.

______________________8. I drove my mother’s wheel to the party.

______________________9. It was his exact estimate.

______________________10. Your face is as big as a seed.

______________________11. Happiness when will you visit me.

______________________12. In the evening, the river winds take the village.

______________________13. The pendulum is a thing of dread to nervous

persons like me, it reminds one of swaying
Iscariot – suspended from a tree.

_____________________14. I like your dress, it seems like you’ve been to a

carnival.

_____________________15. A man more right than his neighbor constitutes a

majority of one.

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 60

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

Name___________________________________ Date______________

Course/year/section________________________

ACTIVITY 5

Instructions: Identify what is being described on each number. Write your

answer on the space provided.

____________________________1. It serves as the narrator

____________________________2. What is being talked about in a poem.

____________________________3. It is the atmosphere created by the poet

____________________________4. It always stands for something

____________________________5. It is pioneered by Walt Whitman

____________________________6. It is the picture perceived by the reader

____________________________7. It is the message of the poem.

____________________________8. “it is a patterned recurrence of like or

similar sounds and its functions indirectly to intensify

meaning.

____________________________9. It is the patterned of the stressed and

unstressed syllables.

____________________________10. Repetition of the internal vowel sounds.

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 61

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

Name___________________________________ Date______________

Course/year/section________________________

ACTIVITY 6

Instructions: Illustrate the poem Dangdang Ay to show its imagery. Use the space
below for your illustration. Use the rubric as your guide in doing this activity.

Criteria Excellent Good Fair Poor Score

15-13 12-10 9-8 7-1
Visual The entire Some parts of the Few parts of the The entire artwork
interpretation artwork captures artwork capture artwork capture the does not capture
of the poem the visual the visual visual interpretation the visual
interpretation of interpretation of of the poem interpretation of the
the poem. the poem poem
Creativity The execution is The execution is There are many Most of the parts
very creative. quite creative. parts that are not are not creative.
creative,
Total

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 62

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

Name___________________________________ Date______________

Course/year/section________________________

ACTIVITY 7
Instructions: Look for a song that has similar message with the poem, To the Man I Married
by Angela Manalang-Gloria. Write the title of the song that you have chosen then, write an
explanation on how it is similar to the theme of To the Man I Married. Be guided with the
rubric for you to accomplish this activity.

Title of the song:

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Name of the singer:

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Explanation

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Criteria Excellent Good Fair Poor Score

10-9 8-5 4-3 2-1
Details Explanation title Only explanation Only title of the song Only title of the
of the song and and title of the and name of the song
name of the artist song are given. artist are given. (No explanation
are given. (No name of the (No explanation) and name of the
artist) artist)
Explanation The explanation The is explanation The explanation is The explanation is
is comprehensive somehow somehow unacceptable.
and complete. comprehensive comprehensive and
but complete. incomplete.
Total

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 63

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department
 GEC 13
LITERATURE OF THE PHILIPPINES

Maria Gloria R. Beco-Nada,MA 64

Southern Luzon State University
College of Arts and Sciences
Languages, Literature and Humanities Department