Republic of the Philippines

MARINDUQUE STATE COLLEGE

SCHOOL OF GOVERNANCE
Panfilo Manguera Sr. Rd., Tanza, Boac, Marinduque 4900 (Main Campus)
Tel. No.: 332-03-23 Email Address: [email protected]
Website: www.marinduquestatecollege.edu.ph

Module 1.1

Chapter 1: Meaning and Relevance of History

Learning Objectives:

 Identify the geographic, linguistic and ethnic dimensions of Philippine literary history
from pre-colonial to the contemporary.
 Differentiate/compare and contrast the various 21st century literary genres and the ones
from the earlier genres/periods citing their elements, structures and traditions.

…. that literature ….
May be classified into five categories or genres: (1) prose
fiction, (2) poetry, (3) drama, (4) nonfiction prose and (5)
creative nonfiction?

While all are art forms, each with its own requirements of
structure and style, usually the first three are classified as imaginative literature. The genres of
imaginative literature have much in common, but they have also distinguishing characteristics.

Prose fiction is an imaginary story, usually written down, that someone tells in everyday,
natural language. It generally uses a variety of techniques such as narrative and has a wide range
in terms of length. It deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual,
but rather, imaginary or invented by the author. Works of prose fiction usually focus on one or a
few major characters and undergo some kind of change as they interact with other characters and
deal with problems. Examples of prose fiction include novels, short stories, fables, fairy tales,
legends but it now also encompasses films, comic books, and video games.

Poetry is a literary art where the evocative and aesthetic qualities of language are brought
out in lieu, or together with the language's apparent meaning. It is writing that communicates
economically, intensely, and intimately through and beyond language,} relying heavily on
imagery, figurative language, and sound effect devices.

Drama is a literary work which is designed to be acted out on a stage performed by

actors before an audience. Like prose fiction, drama may focus on a single character or a small
number of characters, and it presents imaginary events as if they were happening in the present,
to be witnessed by an audience.
 Imaginative literature differs from nonfiction prose, the fourth genre, which refers to any
kind of prose writing that is based on facts, well-written prose that deals with real| people, things,
events, and places. The story must conform to what is true and cannot be manipulated by the
writer's imagination. Major goals of nonfiction prose are truth in reporting and logic in
reasoning.

However, the distinction between fiction and nonfiction has been blurred in recent
years. Fictionists (writers of fiction) have based their stories on real life events and characters
(nonfiction), and historians (writers of nonfiction) have incorporated imagined dialogue (fiction)
to suggest the thoughts of historical figures. This kind of writing is called creative nonfiction. It
is a genre of writing that uses literary styles and techniques to create factually accurate
narratives. Journals of self-expression, letters, magazine articles, and other expressions of
imagination can be legitimately either fiction or nonfiction are examples of this kind of writing.

Literature: Its Relevance and Components

Introduction

Literature is literally "acquaintance with letters." It has its Latin derivation "litera" which
means individual written character (letter). The term has generally come to identify a collection
of texts or work of art, which in Western culture are mainly prose, nonfiction and non-fiction,
drama and poetry. Literature is a branch of aesthetics, a branch of philosophy that deals with
question "What is art".

The word "literature" has different meanings depending on who is using it and in what
context. It could be applied broadly to mean any symbolic record encompassing everything from
images and sculptures to letters. In a more narrow sense the term could mean only text composed
of letters, or other examples of symbolic written language, but in the broader sense, literature is
"life "itself for it has in its scope man's feelings and emotions. In other words, it is about
experiences- records of man's everyday struggle for life.

Imaginative or creative writing, especially of recognized artistic value, literature must be

an analysis of experience and a synthesis of the findings into a unity. It is the collective body of
literary productions, embracing the entire results of knowledge and fancy preserved in writing-a
body of written works produced in a particular language, country, or age.
 Defining Literature

(Essay)
by Antonino Soria de Veyra
Region 8- Eastern Visayas

A very good introduction to the subject is Terry Eagleton's "Introduction: What is

Literature?" (The first chapter of Literary Theory: An Introduction). In it, he enumerates several
ways by which we usually define literature. But then he also interrogates each definition to the
point that whatever certainty we had about what literature is ultimately breaks apart.

The first definition he lists is: 1literature is "imaginative writing"-that is, fiction as
opposed to factual writing. And perhaps most of us would agree with this, until Eagleton points
out that not all texts considered literature are fictional (he points to Francis Bacon's essays and
John Donne's sermons as proof) nor are all fiction pieces considered literature (citing Superman
comic books as an example).

Eagleton then turns his attention to the definition of literature as, quoting Roman
Jakobson, "a kind of writing which ... represents an 'organized violence committed on ordinary
speech'." This kind of writing "uses language in peculiar ways" not necessarily to communicate
ideas or emotions but to focus attention on language itself (just like some abstract paintings use
paint not to attempt any representation of actual objects but to foreground in our perception the
materiality of the medium). And when we think of some literary pieces (James Joyce's
Finnegan's Wake comes easily to mind), this definition seems apt. But then Eagleton asks, what
is "ordinary language"? How do we know a particular speech is a deviation and not just a
community's different way of expressing an idea or emotion? And how come figurative language
is just as common in "ordinary language" as it is in so-called literary texts?

And, Eagleton asks, what if we insist on reading as literary a text that wasn't really meant
to be literature-even if its language is apparently referential and its intent pragmatic? Eagleton
uses the example of a drunken man reading more than is "intended" in a notice that reads: "Dogs
must be carried on the escalator." Should texts with self- referential and non-pragmatic language
necessarily qualify it as literature?

Seems not. There are no inherent qualities that make a text literary. Eagleton says
literature is a "construct"-it is what a particular group of people at a particular point in time says
it is. Why they say so is a matter of value-judgment, of their subjective evaluation of texts. What
a particular group says is reflective of their "ideology"-by which Eagleton defines "roughly, [as]
the ways in which what we say and believe connects with the power structure and power-
relations of the society we live in" and, more particularly, as "those modes of feeling, valuing,
perceiving and believing which have some kind of relation to the maintenance and reproduction
of social power."

What we would call literature, then, may seem a product of our subjective valuation of
certain texts. But these valuations, according to Eagleton, "have their roots in deeper structures
of belief which are apparently unshakeable."
 Perhaps it is wise to ponder, as a Literature student, what texts do we call literature? And
why? And should we, can we, break away from how literature is currently defined? How would
that literature look like? What makes literature "Literature"?

Which question is exactly what Culler asks in his Literary Theory: A Very Short
Introduction. Not satisfied with the idea of literature as a "construct," Culler interrogates "what
makes us (or some other society) treat something as literature?" He then focuses on what we do
when we treat something as literature.

First off, he says, we consider texts as literary when language is foregrounded. When the
language of the text catches our attention, it makes us think about how something is being said.
We begin to focus on the text's form. Secondly, Culler continues, literature integrates language to
form-what he refers to as "sound is echo to the sense." This foregrounding and integration of
language makes the literary text "a linguistic event which projects a fictional world" whose
"relation to the [actual] world [becomes] a matter of interpretation." This makes a literary work
an aesthetic object "because, with other communicative functions initially bracketed and
suspended, it engages readers to consider the interrelation between form and content." It also
makes literary texts as "intertextual or self-reflexive constructs" whose meaning is found in its
relations to other texts-literary and otherwise.

Culler concludes by saying that "the question what is literature?" matters because recent]
theory has highlighted the literariness of texts of all sorts. To reflect on literariness is to keep
before us, as resources for analyzing these discourses, reading practices elicited by literature: the
suspension of the demand for immediate intelligibility, reflection on the implications of means of
expression, and attention to how meaning is made and pleasure produced."

Definitions and Different Meanings of Literature

The following diverse definitions of literature exhibit the creative genius of its authors.

Arnold: Literature is the best of what has been thought and written. Poetry at least, is an
imitation of a noble action and ought to impart pleasure by permitting a "vent in action" of
emotions which would otherwise be stifling. ("Preface to the Poems")

Aristotle: Literature is an imitation of a sequence of events. Literature can be categorized

and, thereby, understood according to the method of operation and execution of each category.
Viewing or reading literature facilitates the expression (pushing out) of undesirable emotions.
("Poetics").

Corneille: Literature is the execution in language of a number of rules that govern how
to render an imitation of events gracefully and according to form and verisimilitude. (Three
Discourses on Dramatic Poetry")

Horace: Literature is an imitation of events or objects or objects in such a manner as to

render a "golden" world, improved over the real object in nature (which Sidney calls "brazen").
Literature ought to delight, instruct, and inspire the reader. ("An Apology for Poesy")
 Del Castillo and Medina: Literature is a faithful reproduction of life, executed in an
artistic pattern. It is the orchestration of the manifold but elemental experiences of man, blended
into harmonious and desired patterns of expression. ("Phil. Literature from Ancient Times to the
Present")

Johnson: Literature is an imitation which has been judged to have value in a period of
centuries as true but general reflection of human nature in a variety of real or imaginary
circumstances. ("Preface to Shakespeare")

Longinus: Literature is written work that causes or fails to cause the experience of the
sublime-awe attached to terror. ("On the Sublime")

Mukarovsky: Literature is language that draws attention to the mode of expression itself
and thereby goes beyond merely describing or communicating ideas

Plato: Literature is an imitation (in words) of an imitation (In matter or material

existence) of an idea that exists originally in the mind of God. As an imitation twice removed
from the true reality, it is inferior, deceptive, and dangerous, largely because audiences imitate
what they see and read.

Pope: Literature is an imitation of a nature that is executed not by copying nature directly
but rather by imitating the works and techniques of previous writers who are somehow "close" to
nature and to the original. ("An Essay on Criticism)

Wordsworth: Literature is a creative expression of Platonic ideas that is cast in a form

that affects readers by operating upon their sympathies and apathies, thereby affording an
emotional experience of ideas that Plato had believed could be apprehended logically. ("Preface
to the Cenci," Defence of Poetry)

Shlovsky: Literature defamiliarizes the familiar; that is, it caused us to see the ordinary in
a way that jolts us out automatic ways of perceiving and acting. ("Art as Technique")
Chapter Exercises 1.1

Reflection Paper:

(Microsoft Word, Times New Roman, 12) Minimum of 100 words.

Strictly no copying in the Internet!

“In your own words make an essay defining Philippine Literature”