REVIEWER IN 21st CENTURY LITERATURE (FIRST QUARTER)
Ancient literature/folk literature
Myth – a traditional story in prose concerning details of gods and demigods and the creation of the world and
its inhabitants.
Example: Visayan Creation Myth
Heroic Narratives or Epic – folk epics that narrates the adventures of tribal heroes which embody in
themselves the ideals and values of the group.
Example: Lam-ang
Legeds – legends that explains how things came to be, why things are as they are.
Example: Legend of Mayon Volcano
Folktales – prose regarded as
Animal tale – a folktale using animals as characters.
The monkey and the turtle
Folk speech – simplest form of oral literature.
Riddles - description of objects intended to suggest something entirely different.
Tumakbo si Juan, nahati ang daan (Zipper)
Proverbs - short popular sayings that express effectively some commonplace truth or usefull.
nag hindi lumingon sa pinanggalingan, hindi makakarating sa paroroonan.
Folk songs - verses set into music by the members.
manang Biday
Poetry
Ladino poems
Ladinos – were natives, first tagalong versifiers who saw print; highly literate in both Spanish and the
vernacular.
Example: Fernando Bagongbata of “Salamat nang Ualang Hangga” – a twelve stanza poem in
alternating Tagalog and Spanish lines.
Metrical Romances
Corridos – were widely read during the Spanish period.
- These are extended verse narrative based on tales brought into the country from Europe.
Example: Ang ibong Adarna
Awi – is a type of Filipino poem consisting of 12 syllable quatrains.
ExampleFrancisco Baltazar’s – “Florante at Laura”
Prose
The prose works of the Spanish period consisted mostly of didactic pieces and translations of religois writings
in foreign languages.
Example: Urbana and Feliza by Fr. Modesto de Castro
Drama
The religious drama – arrange according to the appearance in the liturgical calendar of the events they
celebrate.
The panuluyan – the tagalong version of the Mexican “posadas”
- Held on the eve of Christmas. It dramatizes Joseph’s and Mary’s search for
lodging in Bethlehem.
The cenaculo – the dramatization of the passion and death of Jesus Christ presented during Maundy
Thursday and Good Friday.
The salubong – an easter play that dramatizes the meeting of the rises Christ and his mother.
The moriones – refers to the participants dressed in Roman soldiers.
The tibag or santacruzan – performed during the month of May which has the devotion to the Holy
Cross.
The pangangaluluwa – an interesting socio-religious practice on All Saints Day which literally means
“For the Soul”.
The secular drama – this were generally held during the nine nights of vigil and prayers after someone’s
death
The karagatan
The Duplo
The Comedia
FAMOUS AUTHORS IN THE REGION
Francisco Sionil Jose (born on December 3, 1924)
- is the one of the most widely read Filipino writers in the English language.
- His novels and short stories depict the social underpinnings and colonialism in Filipino society.
- His work is written in English, and have translated into 28 languages including Korean, Indonesian,
Czech, Russian, Latvian, Ukrainian and Dutch.
- He was born in Rosales, Pangasinan (the setting of many of his stories)
- One of the greatest influences of Jose was his industrious mother who went out of her way to get him
the books he loved to read.
- Jose started writing in grade school, at the time he started reading.
WORKS
Tree (1978) – is a story of a boy growing up in a small Ilocano town, surrounded by friends below his social
class, by relatives and doting servants who have served his families all their lives. It is also a story of
oppression and compassion.
Mass (December 31, 1974) – the concluding novel, is set around 1972, the year president marcos declared
Martial Law. The novel describes those times, the massive demonstration, the corruption and uncertainties and
social upheaval that marcos used to justify his dictatorship.
The pretenders (1962) – is his most popular novel, which is the story of one man’s alienation from his poor
background and the decadence of his wife’s wealthy family. This is a novel that primarily talks about the class
struggles that a person maybe experiencing in her/his life.
My brother, my executioner (1973) - The conflict in this novel about the Hukbalahap uprising in the fifties is
not just the enmity in the guerrilla war. It is the deeper symbolic conflict between two brothers and their vastly
different and estranged worlds. Here, too, is the trauma of traditional society undergoing change, and the old
refusing to let go.
Carlos Bulosan (November 2, 1913- September 11, 1956)
- Was an English-language Filipino novelist and poet.
- He was born in Mangusmana, Binalonan, Pangasinan.
- His hometown is also the starting point of his famous semi-autobiographical novel.
Works
The laughter of my father - So the rich man sued Father Bulosan for stealing the spirit of his food.
And Father paid him in his own coin, while the laughter of the Bulosans and the judge drove the rich man's
family out of the courtroom. ... But the episodes of Father's history that his son Carlos retells belong to
universal and timeless comedy.
The cry and the dedication - Dramatizes the resourcefulness, cunning, and pain of the Filipino peasants'
struggle against a heritage of colonization, first by Spain and later by the United States. This title is set during
the political upheavals of the 1940s and 1950s.
My father’s tragedy - The story is about a father and his children who grow up cockfighting more than being a
family. ... In his vivid portrayal of his family's poverty, Bulosan captured the forces that ultimately drove him to
seek a better life to the United States.
21st CENTURY LITERARY GENRES
Hyper-poetry – it is also called cyber poetry. It could not be presented without the aid computers and the
internet and includes verse with links to sub poems or foot notes, poetry “generation” or poetry with
movements or images.
Types of hyper-poetry
a. Haiku
b. Sonnets
c. Blank verse
d. Couplets
e. Villanelles
Blogs – it is a shortened of term “web blog”, a regularly updated journal in the internet.
Texttula – the term “textual” is a blended of the English word “text” and the Filipino word “tula” meaning text
poem, it is a poem written in the form of text messages.
Chick lit – written by women, uses strong female character who is trying to live in the modern world. Consist of
heroine-centered narratives that focus on the trial and tribulations of their individual protagonist.
Spoken poetry – is a poetic performance art that is word based. It is an oral art that focuses on the aesthetic
of word play such as intonation and voice inflection.
Speculative fiction - is a broad category of fiction encompassing genres with certain elements that do not
exist in terms of the recorded history and observed phenomena of the current universe, covering various
themes in the context of the supernatural, futuristic, and many other imaginative topics.
Graphic novel – is book made up of comics content. Although normally refers to long fictional works, the term
graphic novel is applied broadly and includes fiction, non-fiction and anthologized work.
Flash fiction – it is a micro-fiction, micro-narrative and sudden fiction.
