UNIVERSITY OF THE CORDILLERAS

College of Teacher Education

MODULE 1 (Survey of Philippine Literature)

Course: ENGL ED 104

Course Title: Survey of Philippine Literature
Course Credits: 3 units,
Contact Hours/week: 8 hours
Prerequisite: None
Course Description:
Course Description

This course enables the pre-service English teachers to demonstrate research-based content
knowledge in analyzing the growth and development of Philippine Literature in English from 1900 to
the present along socio-historical events as shown in representative works. Moreover, it provides them
with an opportunity to enrich the K to 12 English curriculum by producing an extensive and grade-
specific reading list to enhance their future students’ reading skills. Particular attention is given to the
analysis and appreciation of the cultural differences and similarities embodied in select literary texts.

Course Outcomes: At the end of the trimester, the students are expected to have:
A. demonstrate content knowledge of Philippine Literature in English;
B. demonstrate research-based knowledge in the preparation of an annotated reading list of the
selected Philippine literary pieces.

Topic 1:

Role of Literature
 Essence and Functions
  Main Divisions
 Literary Genres (Drama, Essay, Poetry, Short story)

Objectives:

 explain the role of literature in understanding the uniqueness of the Filipinos;

 differentiate the varied types of literary genres in the country.

Instructional Materials:

 Handout
 Links for self-study

Teaching-Learning Activity/Lesson Proper:

 Activating prior knowledge

Meaning of literature.
Do you still remember how our teachers taught us about he meaning of literature?
Watch this video for a more in-depth analysis of the meaning of literature:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud7t17855f8&ab_channel=TheAudiopedia
Not only should you know the meaning of literature, you should also know what
literature is for. Another fascinating video you may use is this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RCFLobfqcw&ab_channel=TheSchoolofLife

What then would be the best meaning of Literature can you come up with? Do you
think you can make an acrostic about it? How about a slogan about the importance of
literature?
We will go to that later, during our assessment time.

 Acquiring New knowledge

Now let us take a look at the Essence and Functions of LITERATURE:
First-things-first, what can you say about this picture?

How can it embody the world of literature?

What is literature? Why do we read it? Why is literature important? Literature is a term used
to describe written or spoken material. Broadly speaking, “literature” is used to describe
anything from creative writing to more technical or scientific works, but the term is most
commonly used to refer to works of the creative imagination, including works of poetry,
drama, fiction, and nonfiction. Why do we read literature? Literature represents a language or
a people: culture and tradition.

But, literature is more important than just a historical or cultural artifact. Literature introduces
us to new worlds of experience. We learn about books and literature; we enjoy the comedies
and the tragedies of poems, stories, and plays; and we may even grow and evolve through our
literary journey with books.

Ultimately, we may discover meaning in literature by looking at what the author says and
how he/she says it. We may interpret the author’s message. In academic circles, this decoding
of the text is often carried out through the use of literary theory, using a mythological,
sociological, psychological, historical, or other approach.

Whatever critical paradigm we use to discuss and analyze literature, there is still an artistic
quality to the works. Literature is important to us because it speaks to us, it is universal, and it
affects us. Even when it is ugly, literature is beautiful.

THE NATURE OF LITERATURE

The first problem to confront us is, obviously, the subject matter of literary scholarship. What
is literature? What is not literature? What is the nature of literature? Simple as such questions
sound, they are rarely answered clearly. One way is to define “literature” as everything in
print. We then shall be able to study the “medical profession in the fourteenth century” or
“planetary motion in the early Middle Ages” or “witchcraft in Old and New England”.
As Edwin Greenlaw has argued, “Nothing related to the history of civilization is beyond our
province”; we are “not limited to belles-lettres or even to printed or manuscript records in our
effort to understand a period or civilization”, and we “must see our work in the light of its
possible contribution to the history of culture”.

According to Greenlaw’s theory, and the practice of many scholars, literary study has thus
become not merely closely related to the history of civilization but indeed identical with it.
Such study is literary only in the sense that it is occupied with printed or written matter,
necessarily the primary source of most history. It can, of course, be argued in defence of such
a view that historians neglect these problems, that they are too much preoccupied with
diplomatic, military, and economic history, and that thus the literary scholar is justified in
invading and taking over a neighbouring terrain.

Doubtless nobody should be forbidden to enter any area he likes, and doubtless there is much
to be said in favour of cultivating the history of civilization in the broadest terms…

As for the functions of literature, for the time being just think to these two concepts, “art for
art’s sake” and “art for progress”. “Art for art’s sake” is the usual English rendering of a
French slogan from the early 19th century, “l’art pour l’art”, and expresses a philosophy that
the intrinsic value of art, and the only “true” art, is divorced from any didactic, moral or
utilitarian function.

Such works are sometimes described as “autotelic”, from the Greek autoteles, “complete in
itself”, a concept that has been expanded to embrace “inner-directed” or “self-motivated”
human beings. A Latin version of this phrase, “Ars gratia artis”, is used as a motto by Metro-
Goldwyn-Mayer and appears in the circle around the roaring head of Leo the Lion in its
motion picture logo. “L’art pour l’art” (translated as “art for art’s sake”) is credited to
Théophile Gautier (1811–1872), who was the first to adopt the phrase as a slogan.

Gautier was not, however, the first to write those words: they appear in the works of Victor
Cousin, Benjamin Constant, and Edgar Allan Poe. For example, Poe argues in his essay “The
Poetic Principle” (1850), that “We have taken it into our heads that to write a poem simply for
the poem’s sake […] and to acknowledge such to have been our design, would be to confess
ourselves radically wanting in the true poetic dignity and force: – but the simple fact is that
would we but permit ourselves to look into our own souls we should immediately there
discover that under the sun there neither exists nor can exist any work more thoroughly
dignified, more supremely noble, than this very poem, this poem per se, this poem which is a
poem and nothing more, this poem written solely for the poem’s sake”.

“Art for art’s sake” was a bohemian creed in the nineteenth century, a slogan raised in
defiance of those who — from John Ruskin to the much later Communist advocates of
socialist realism — thought that the value of art was to serve some moral or didactic purpose.
“Art for art’s sake” affirmed that art was valuable as art, that artistic pursuits were their own
justification and that art did not need moral justification — and indeed, was allowed to be
morally neutral or subversive…

I want to submerge you better in the world of literature, as such watch this video again and
internalize the different concepts you can derive as to its ESSENCE AND FUNCTIONS.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXUjXohai-U&ab_channel=Buzzle

 Without literature, life is hell. What does this mean?

Another aspect we have to be familiar with is, the main divisions of literature.

We are not new to Prose and poetry, right? But to fortify our knowledge about this, visit these
websites and be read its contents. By then I am sure everything will now ring a bell. 😊

http://philliterature.weebly.com/two-divisions-of-literature.html

https://www.reference.com/world-view/two-divisions-literature-6507458c3a47b4e6

 Please read whatever is incorporated there for our discussion via zoom later.
Recitation will happen and I am sure you would enjoy it😊

Literature will not be complete without our knowledge of the different genres that an English
major like you should know. I am likewise sending a ppt to accompany this discussion to
better help us realize the different genres that are known to us. This powerpoint will also
serve as our discussion template for later.

 Analysis:

After watching the different videos and visiting the different websites, create a GRAPHIC
ORGANIZER of LITERATURE IN GENERAL, IN A PIECE OF PAPER AND TAKE A
PHOTO of it. Share it to our class during our class discussion either via a video or through
canvas.

So, that is about Literature for this meeting. I know you still have many questions as to what
literature really is in the mind of an English teacher, but, let me tell you this, “Where
literature is, life is also. Where literature is absent, life is empty”

“LITERATURE BE WITH YOU”

Enhancement Activity/Outcome:

Good or Bad?
Give your opinion in a form of a poem to this line:

“Without literature, life is hell.”

Is this a good implication, or a negative one?
 Upload your answers in canvas.

References:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud7t17855f8&ab_channel=TheAudiopedia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RCFLobfqcw&ab_channel=TheSchoolofLife

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXUjXohai-U&ab_channel=Buzzle

http://philliterature.weebly.com/two-divisions-of-literature.html

https://www.reference.com/world-view/two-divisions-literature-
6507458c3a47b4e6