December 06, 2004

Philippine Theater in English

DOREEN G. FERNANDEZ
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The English language first set foot on Philippine stages in the first
decade of the twentieth century, with the establishment of American
colonial rule in 1901. The United States, through the American
Insular Government, introduced into its new territory American
ideals and the American way of life through a nationwide
educational system, then later through the print and broadcast
media and via film. Over the course of four decades, and beyond
the end of American rule in 1946, American forms of art, plus their
English and European counterparts, were introduced through the
language and media and became accepted, assimilated, and used as
models.

The American influence on Philippine theatre is found in what was

then called bodabil, in the Western plays staged in the original
English or in English translation, and in the original plays written by
Filipinos in English and in Philippine languages and produced by
contemporary theatre groups, using such styles as theatre of the
absurd, epic theatre, expressionism, and various forms of realism.
The American tradition entered the Philippine stage principally
through the educational system established in 1901, and since then
has continued, developing with fresh inputs, merging with or
transforming traditional theatre, siring translations and adaptations,
sparking the emergence of new playwrights, new trends, new
theatres, and on the whole contributing ideas and energy to
Philippine theatre.

The colonizers who arrived to establish the American Insular

Government in the Philippines came upon a theatre scene they
could not understand. They found religious dramas and
dramatizations, long "hyperbolic" verse plays (komedya), the light
musical comedy of manners (sarswela), and the plays they came to
call "seditious" because these had the temerity to espouse Philippine
independence from the United States. Arthur Riggs, a military
journalist and eyewitness to the plays and to the trials of their
arrested playwrights, cast, and crew, wondered in 1905 what would
happen next, since this "inspiring drama, exactly suited to . . .
[their] tastes and wishes" had been squashed by the American laws,
arrests, and trials. The Filipino stage he called "a wholly quiescent
and hibernating creature, awaiting the sun-warmth before its
emergence from seclusion and futility."
Riggs could not have known, of course, that the rites and rituals,
the verse debates, songs, and dances of the indigenous theatre did
and would continue, as would the folk theatre represented by the
religious dramas and dramatizations, the komedya, the budding
drama, and the sarswela. Each simply found its place -- on the
different stages both outdoors and indoors, in barrio, town, or city --
and its own audience, whether paying or nonpaying, on religious
feast days, at town fiestas, on civic occasions, and eventually in
evenings at the theatre. Inevitably, however, the entry of the new
culture would have an indelible effect on the Philippine stage.

Bodabil

The word comes from vaudeville, which was the first visible
theatrical influence from America. Although a French form, it had
been adapted in the United States as a show made up of assorted
entertainments. Shows comprising song-and-dance numbers, magic
and musical acts, skits and stand-up comedy, chorus girls and
comedians were first brought in to entertain the American soldiers
around the turn of the century. They entertained the native
audience as well, who found them convenient and portable
showcases for entertainment spectacles.

The songs and dances of bodabil (vodavil in Spanish; bodabil is the

Filipinized word) soon came to serve as intermission numbers
between one-act sarswelas (often billed in threes) or between the
three or four acts of a full-length sarswela. They were called stage
shows during the Japanese Occupation and, much later, variety
shows. In some provinces the bodabil intermissions were called
"jamboree," a word that had originally been applied to the opening
musical numbers of a stage show.

Bodabil eventually went onstage in such venues as the Manila Grand

Opera House and the Savoy (later Clover) Theatre, forming images
of "what's entertainment" in the minds of Filipino
audiences. Bodabil-type acts appeared (and still appear) on political
stages, but decades later deteriorated into burlesque and strip
shows in cheap theatres in suburbs or around the American bases.
While it reigned, however, bodabil spawned musical trends and
musicians, performance genres and performers. Borromeo Lou
tuned in to jazz music. Dancers like Benny Mack and Bayani
Casimiro (called the Filipino Fred Astaire), comic magicians like
Canuplin (billed as the local Chaplin), a superb torch singer a la
Sophie Tucker called Katy de la Cruz, singers like Diana Toy and
Miami Salvador, and, much later, Eddie Mesa (the Filipino Elvis
Presley), Diomedes Maturan (the local Perry Como), and Nora Aunor
(who started as the Pinay Timi Yuro) developed in the following
decades, showing the impact and influence of American popular
entertainment.

They also proved how limber was the Filipino entertainer, how easy
it was for him or her to catch American rhythms, and how painless
and effective a tool popular culture was in the Americanization of
the Filipino. The songs, dances, and entertainment forms of most
Filipinos until the 1960s were undeniably patterned on the American
dream. American popular culture embodied, for decades, their
images of beauty and excellence, of life and of self.

The first words of English spoken on the Philippine stage, therefore,

were those of popular American songs, songs of life and love U.S.-
style. To the music-loving Filipinos, these were pleasant, easy to
accept and even assimilate. Neither they nor the performers could
have known how powerful these cultural tools were. As Noel Coward
has said, "Strange how potent cheap music is."

English-language Theater

Historically, the next and certainly the major American influence on

Philippine theatre was the training in the English language
propagated by the educational system established so systematically
in 1901. Unlike the Spaniards, who had only reluctantly and
sporadically taught the Filipinos their language (they had preferred
to learn the Filipino languages themselves), the Americans
established a public-school system and teacher-training institutions
immediately upon the installation of an insular government. English,
it was decided, would be the vehicle of education, and to accomplish
this, American teachers were fielded: at first soldiers and their
wives, then eventually the Thomasites, a shipload of teachers who
came on the USS Thomas in 1901, sent expressly to teach Filipinos
English -- and, without teachers or students realizing it, the culture
that comes loaded into the language.

Theatre in English was the immediate result of both the language

training and the educational system. Considering, however, that
these teachers were themselves the fruits of a Victorian education
(which was not enthusiastic about theatre) and had only witnessed
American theatre, if at all, in its infancy, the effects of American-
style education were immediately felt not in the theatre but in the
classroom. There was the change of language first of all, which
inferentially made the vernacular theatres seem fit only for the
provinces, for fiestas, for the unschooled, and promoted English as
the language of the schooled and eventually the learned.
Certainly, sinakulo and komedya would not be performed or
mentioned, much less studied, in schools.
And then there were the examples of drama discussed in
classrooms: "textbook plays" aimed at teaching the language, at
rehearsing students in the speaking of it. These were not linked in
any way to life outside the classroom, in contrast to the folk plays
entrenched so deeply in community and popular life. Thus plays,
staged in classrooms as language exercises, came to be many a
student's first (and lasting) impression of theatre. Stories like "The
Monkey's Paw" were dramatized, as was Longfellow's poem
"Evangeline." Playlets, dramatizations, and longer plays were
staged: for example, Arms and the Man and Polly with a Past at the
University of the Philippines (UP), directed by the pioneering
American teacher-director Jean Garrot Edades.

Eventually there came out of the classrooms native playwrights who

spoke the new language with some ease (more ease is required to
write a play than a poem) and who wrote dramas based on the
classroom examples. The first play written in English by Filipinos
was A Modern Filipina (1915) by Jesusa Araullo and Lino Castillejo,
both teacher-students at the Philippine Normal College. In it a
young woman speaks her mind and plans her future quite
independently, then decides to accept a suitor who uses an old trick
(he falls out of a tree and plays on her sympathy) to win her over.
Being "modern," however, she is shown not to have fallen for the
trick but to have agreed because she really liked him best from the
start.

With mastery of the language came more playwrights, like Jorge

Bocobo, Carlos P. Romulo, and Vidal Tan -- all of them,
coincidentally, later presidents of the University of the Philippines.
They progressed from writing occasional plays for Rizal Day or
school-foundation days and similar occasions, to commenting on
local mores and customs and on such issues as marriage and
election promises. (I would note here that whereas the folk play had
largely been written for fiestas and religious feasts like Holy Week
and Christmas, the new plays came to be connected to civic
occasions.) The best of these plays, such as Vidal Tan's The
Husband of Mrs. Cruz (1929), a comic rendering of elections and
their effect on community and family relationships, showed the
Filipino's ease with the language and with the one-act play form,
and his successful adaptation of both to Philippine subject matter
and life.

Into this place and time soon came the concept of "legitimate"
theatre on legitimate (mainly indoor) stages, as distinguished from
the temporary, open-air, built-for-the-occasion, or built-for-other-
purposes stages of folk theatre. The legitimate stage, according to
American practice, was only for drama, and for access to it the
audience purchased tickets to a play that was an event in itself and
not part of a community or religious celebration. Legitimate theatre
required not only playwright, director, and actors, but also a support
organization for production, publicity, and ticket sales. Unlike the
situation in "nonlegitimate" folk theatre, where all the above might
be provided by a community, here there was as well a clear division
between performers and audience, between stage and backstage,
and between theatre and life outside.

By the 1940s and 1950s, when drama had moved out of the
classroom and onto school and legitimate stages, and Shakespeare
and the Greek tragedies had been performed in public by the Ateneo
de Manila and the UP theatre groups, playwrights such as Severino
Montano, Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero, and later Alberto S. Florentino
developed. For them, theatre was no classroom exercise, but a real
and earnest art. Severino Montano (1915-80), who had studied
drama at the University of the Philippines and in the United States
at Yale University, still considered it a tool for education, and
established the Arena Theatre at the Philippine Normal College while
he was dean of instruction. With him as director, producer, and
actor, the group staged almost two hundred performances from
1953 to 1964 throughout the country to bring "drama to the
masses" and specifically modern drama to the schools and
communities. Realizing that many communities could not provide
real stages, he had his plays presented arena-style in auditoriums
and classrooms, in meeting halls and open spaces.

The Arena Theatre repertoire consisted mainly of Montano's four

major plays: Parting at Calamba (1953), Sabina (1953), The Ladies
and the Senator (1953), and the full-length work The Love of
Leonor Rivera (1954). The last depicts the undying love of Leonor
Rivera for Jose Rizal (they were real-life sweethearts), even through
marriage to someone else, unto and beyond death. The lyrical text
is in English, but the view of the national hero as a suffering man
and an object of romantic love is most compatible with the native
sensibility.

Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero (b. 1917) was the major Filipino playwright in
English, with over a hundred plays to his credit, many published,
most of them staged. Guerrero's work was authentic and proper to
the times (the 1940s to the early 1960s), because his language was
that of the people he wrote about: the educated middle class, whose
concerns were faithfully reflected in his writings for the stage. His
was one of the few Filipino voices in an era of borrowed foreign
plays.
Guerrero taught at the University of the Philippines, where the
people he wrote about were learning English, along with the mores
and manners of the Americans they read about and watched in the
movies. His most popular plays include Wanted: A Chaperone
(1940), which took a traditional custom into a setting of incipient
modernity; The Three Rats (1948), the first psychological play in the
Philippine repertory; and Condemned (1943), about a man
sentenced to death, and the loves around him. His comic Movie
Artists (1940) and Half an Hour in a Convent (1934), written while
he was a student, and his first three-act play, Forsaken House
(1938), have been staged in the 1980s and 1990s, but in Tagalog
translation.

Certainly as important as Guerrero's writing was his service to

theatre in the Philippines. The UP Mobile Theatre took the substance
and techniques of his theatre around the country, and presented
more than 2,500 performances of his plays in English -- and later in
the regional languages -- for nineteen years. The UP Dramatic Club,
which he directed for sixteen years, produced over 120 foreign and
Filipino works. In it he trained the actors and directors of future
productions in and out of the UP. His own plays about basketball
players, movie actors, parents and children, sweethearts and suitors
and chaperones put the Americanized Philippine world on campus
stages and in other theatres. The dramas from Anglo-American
repertories that he staged at the UP (The Caine Mutiny Court
Martial, Tea and Sympathy, A Streetcar Named Desire, Waiting for
Godot) provided substantive theatre experience and ideas for
audiences of many ages, among them those who later became
leaders in the arts as well as in politics.

Alberto S. Florentino (b. 1931) brought to the attention of Philippine

theatre directors and audiences the world outside the English-
speaking universe: the slums and denizens of Tondo, which he took
as his material for plays like The World Is an Apple (1954), Cavort
with Angels (1959), Cadaver (1954), and Oli Impan (1959). Clear
proof of the dominance English had gained in the theatre was the
fact that Florentino's audiences accepted without question or
discomfort the fact that his Tondo stevedores, prostitutes, and
urchins were speaking correct and idiomatic English. ("Oli Impan" is
a slum child's attempt to pronounce "Holy Infant" in the song "Silent
Night," although he has been speaking correctly before this.) Years
later, these plays would be staged in Tagalog translation, and
Florentino himself would declare an end to his writing of plays in
English.

Aside from plays in English about the Philippine present, Montano,

Guerrero, and Florentino introduced realism into Philippine theatre,
an element not found in the sinakulo (Passion play) and
the komedya (metrical romance) and only nascent in
the sarswela (musical comedy). The biblical stories (and apocryphal
side stories like the tales of Samuel Belibet and Boanerhes), the
romances of the royalty of Albania and Persia, as well as those of
the Estrellas and Anitas of sarswela land and the poets and
hometown boys who loved them were now replaced by stories about
a country lass falling in love with a (married) American, about
politicians and their empty promises, about basketball players and
movie stars, love triangles, and the plight of dock workers,
squatters, and prostitutes. The real Philippine world was creeping up
on the stage and creating a new theatre.

At schools, drama groups without resident playwrights -- the

Aquinas Theatre Guild at the University of Santo Tomas, the various
Ateneo groups, the Paulinian Players Guild at St. Paul's College, and
others --staged American and British plays by writers such as
Shakespeare, James Barrie, George Bernard Shaw, and Gilbert and
Sullivan, and occasionally European plays in English translation, like
Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac and The Romancers, and the
Greek tragedies. These became the lexicons, the models, and the
experience of drama for Filipino urban youth. For these and for all
the theatre lovers bred at the schools, who watched the European
classics at the Ateneo and modern theatre at the UP, English was
the only language for theatre, and Anglo-American plays and
English translations the only models from world theatre.

Thus, although theatre in the 1950s was fairly active, it had no

connection or relation to the vernacular stage, the chasm between
them having been dug by both language and ignorance. The
centuries-old theatre tradition that had linked the indigenous
communities to the Hispanized regional cultures -- community-
based, often staged outdoors, and in various vernaculars -- was
effectively cut off from this new theatre, which knew legitimate
theatre as being schooled, enclosed in edifices, and in English. This
was the time, therefore, of such non-school groups as the Barangay
Theatre Guild, the Manila Theatre Guild, the Penmouth Playhouse,
and various others aiming for legitimate theatre and suffering from
a lack of funds and audiences -- which the school groups had,
although in modest amounts and sizes.

The Barangay Theatre Guild was led by the eminent film director
(and former Ateneo stage actor) Lamberto Avellana and his wife,
the actress-director Daisy H. Avellana. The group did readings on
stage and on television (e.g., Macbeth in Black), and is best known
for its historic 1955 staging of Nick Joaquin's major play, A Portrait
of the Artist as Filipino (1951), and its subsequent film version
(1966). Although this play, considered by many critics the most
important Filipino stage work in English, has been produced often,
both in the original English and in Filipino translation (Larawan,
1969), the Barangay version is considered the most authoritative,
with the actors setting the templates, so to speak, for the major
roles. The work is about two sisters and their father, an eminent
artist, living in Intramuros, the walled city, in the years just before
World War II. Its subject, the role of the past in the present, not
only echoes Nick Joaquin's continuing concerns and themes, but
resonates as well in many other works in Philippine literature.

Nick Joaquin, National Artist for Literature, went on to write other

plays, including Tatarin (1978), Fathers and Sons (1977), The
Beatas (1978), and Camino Real, which, along with A Portrait of the
Artist as Filipino, have continued to be staged in English -- as well
as in Filipino translation -- through the 1970s and 1980s into the
1990s.

Modern Theater

Through the educational system was pumped in, as well, the idea of
modern theatre. Students came to be conversant with Shakespeare
and Greek tragedy, with Shaw and Barrie, and later with Arthur
Miller and Tennessee Williams, Ibsen and Strindberg, without ever
having heard of the sarswela. The idea of theatre that came with
these dramas included proscenium stages, box sets and hand props,
the fourth wall, Stanislavsky and the Method, and even the various
later manifestations of realism, as well as Brechtian theatre and
other trends and techniques. This was all reinforced by the movies,
and later by television shows and videotapes, as well as by material
in the print media. The images of musical theatre held by the
schooled and by the young were generally not from sarswela or
from Rogelio de la Rosa-Carmen Rosales film romances, but from
the Broadway and Hollywood musical, as exemplified by the films of
Busby Berkeley, by the Ziegfield Follies, and by movie musicals from
Singing in the Rain onward. Through the movies too would come
models of heavy drama or light comedy, the classics in traditional or
new modes, schools of acting and directing, techniques of staging
and presentation. Thus, in contemporary plays, playwrights and
directors might refer to (and were certainly influenced by) the acting
of Greta Garbo and Clark Gable or situations like those of Back
Street, Gone with the Wind, and Casablanca.

The idea of theatre, its form and content, and its social function of
education and entertainment were thus, for the schooled Filipinos of
the first half of the twentieth century, shaped according to the
American model. Because of the gap between the vernacular and
the English-language theatres, there was no consciousness of the
community base of Philippine theatre, or of the forms it had taken
before the advent of English and the educational system. On the
contemporary scene, theatre in the schools is seldom in English.
Since the nationalist movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s,
theatre in the national language, Filipino, as well as in Tagalog,
Cebuano, and other vernaculars, has taken ascendance. In English
still, however, have been the occasional musicals staged by such
schools as St. Paul's College of Manila (The Sound of Music,
Carousel, and the like). Occasionally the Ateneo's Dulaang Sibol and
Tanghalang Ateneo, and the former Teatro Filipino at the CCP, have
staged Shakespeare (Hamlet, Julius Caesar) in both English and
Filipino, with the same actors performing in both versions.

Few playwrights still write in English: notable exceptions are Nick

Joaquin and Elsa Martinez Coscolluela (In My Father's House, 1987).
Virginia Moreno's Straw Patriot (1956) was first staged in Tagalog
translation, asBayaning Huwad (1969). Plays in English are now
almost the exclusive domain of Repertory Philippines, a theatre
company founded in 1967 by Zeneida Amador, who wished "to
make theatre-going a social habit in the Philippines." In pursuit of
this goal, Repertory Philippines presents yearly seasons of popular
foreign plays, mostly from Broadway and London's West End. In
1998, however, in observance of the centennial of the Philippine
revolution against Spain, it staged its first play written by Filipinos
(Joy Virata and Ramon Santos, with music by Monsod). Captain
Miong was about General Emilio Aguinaldo, leader of the revolution
and president of the first Philippine republic. It was in English, and
the combination of subject matter and language was well received
by its audiences.

A special role played by Repertory Philippines has been the training

of actors in the modes of the Western theatre, training whose
effectiveness has been proven by the success with which many of
the company's actors (Lea Salonga, Junix Inocian) have found roles
in Miss Saigon and other productions in London and New York. For
the rest of the country, however, most theatre is in Filipino and the
other vernaculars, and it is vigorous and daring, even combative
when the times call for it. Theatre in English, although endowed
with a significant history (it was impelled and demanded by the
times) and with a collection of important texts, is now only a story
to be recalled and retold, and an occasional adventure and pleasure.

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Reference/s:
Barranco, Corinta G. "Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero: The Dramatist as Critic of
Contemporary Philippine Society." Master of Arts thesis, University of Santo
Tomas, 1972.

Fernandez, Doreen G. "The American Colonial and Contemporary Traditions."

CCP Encyclopedia of Philippine Art. Volume 7: Philippine Theatre. Manila.
Cultural Center of the Philippines. 1994.

-----. Palabas: Essays on Philippine Theatre History. Quezon City, Phil. Ateneo
de Manila University Press. 1996.

Tiongson, Nicanor G. Dulaan: An Essay on Philippine Theatre. Manila. Cultural

Center of the Philippines. 1989.

Drama vs. Theatre

Just what is the difference between drama and theatre? The simple
response is that drama is the printed text of a play while theatre refers to the
actual production of the play text on the stage.

Are plays read the same way in which novels are read? A painter speaks
directly to his or her audience through the medium of paint on canvas. The
composer, however, requires musicians to interpret his or her work. A novel
is written in order to be read. Much like the painter, the novelist or poet
speaks directly to the reader, in this case, with words, not paint. A play,
however, is not intended for a reading audience. The playwright knows that
his or her work will only be properly received by the audience in a theatre
after it has been interpreted by directors, actors, and designers. These are
the professional readers -- the theatre artists who will transform the play
text or written words into the theatrical event which will be seen and heard
in a theatre by an audience.

Play text vs. Performance Text

The actual text of the play is much less than the event of the play. It
contains only the dialogue (the words that the characters actually say),
and some stage directions (the actions performed by the characters). The
play as written by the playwright is merely a scenario which guides the
director, designers and actors. The phenomenon of theatre is experienced in
both sounds and visual images. It is alive and ephemeral -- unlike the novel,
it is of the moment -- here today, and gone tomorrow.

We see and hear a play: The word theatre derives from the Greek
word theatron, or seeing place. In Shakespeare's day people talked of going
to "hear a play" -- Hamlet says of the Players, "we'll hear a play tomorrow."

When reading we only take in one impression at a time. In the theatre,

however, we respond simultaneously to the words, the movement of the
actors, their expressions, their voices, the silences, the sound effects, the
lighting, the scenery, the costumes, the gestures, the groupings of characters,
the rhythms, the space, the atmosphere, and so on. All of these elements and
more have been carefully selected, unified, and honed by the collaborative
effort of actors, director, playwright, designers, and technicians.

When reading a play we imagine as much as possible about a

performance of that play -- to see the play in the "mind's eye." The
playwright's stage directions and the description of the stage setting help us
to begin the process of imagining the performance, but they are severely
limited. Compare the experience of actually looking at a painting by
Rembrant to that of merely reading a description of the same painting.

Elements of the Play and Interpretation

How does one begin to interpret a play? A play consists of many elements
including characters, action, language, plot, setting, costume, lighting,
gesture, and structure. When analyzing a play text, a theatre artist seeks the
answers to many questions. This quest leads to an interpretation of the play
-- an understanding of the intent of the playwright coupled with a conceptual
approach that makes any given production of the play unique.

Among the questions asked by the theatre artists are the following:

• a. Who are the people in the play? What does each character want?
What do they do? How do they appear to each other? How do they
feel? What does each character know? What is the background of
each character? With whom do you identify? What conflicts are
there? What values does each character have? What are their
relationships? What are their personal traits? Who has power over
whom?
• b. What is the world of the play? -- Where does it happen? When
does it happen? What are the circumstances affected by the society,
economics, culture and politics of the time? What do we learn from
the setting of the play?
• c. How is language used in the play? What is the nature of dialogue?
How are literary allusions and imagery used?
• d. What are the tempos and rhythms of the play?
• e. What is the style of the play?
 • f. What happens in the play? What is the difference between physical
action and psychological action?
• g. What is the structure of the play? What techniques does the
playwright use?
• h. What are the ideas expressed in the play? What is the playwright
telling us about the world and ourselves?

The ultimate task of the theatre artist is to attempt to answer these

questions and more, and, through an engaging and exciting interpretation, to
reveal the answers to an audience. What began as a play text is thus
transformed into a performance text.

Elements of
Literature Search

—by Ajanta Web What's For Dinner?

Bhattacharyya

Setting: It refers to geographical location of the story, time period,

daily lifestyle of the characters and climate of the story. In a novel,
the setting plays an important role. In short stories, sometimes it
plays an important role, while for others it is not. Settings of literary
forms have been changing according to theme of the literary piece,
for example, Shakespeare’s tragedies and comedies have the
setting of palaces, castles whereas modern and post-modern
dramas have setting of houses of common people. There were
supernatural elements in earlier literature and nowadays absurdity
rules the literature. Setting can take place in a house, school, castle,
forest, hospital or anywhere that the writers want to extend their
scenes.

Theme: Theme is another prime element of literature, which

contains the central idea of all literary forms such as a novel, drama
and short story. It reflects innocence, experience, life, death, reality,
fate, madness, sanity, love, society, individual, etc. Thus, it reflects
the society as a whole, for example, the theme of Hardy’s novel
"The Mayor of Casterbridge" reflects the role of fate in our life.
Likewise, in a drama, theme represents the brief idea of the drama.

Structure: Structure is another important element of a drama, novel

or short story. In dramas, there are plots and subplots. These also
are divided into acts and scenes. Here the contrasting subplots give
the main plot an additional perspective. Likewise, novels have
different chapters and scenes.

Point of view: Point of view is another element of the narrative,

through which a writer tells the story. Authors use first-person point
of view or third-person point of view. First-person point of view
indicates that the main character is telling the story, whereas the
third-person point of view directs that the narrator is telling the story.
A novel can be written in the first-person narrative, third-person
narrative, omniscient point of view, limited omniscient point of view,
stream of consciousness and objective point of view. These points
of view play an important role in the distinct structure of the story or
a play.

Conflict: Be it a short story, drama or

novel, conflict is the essential element of
all these literary forms. A plot becomes
interesting and intriguing when it has its
share of inbuilt conflict and twists. Conflict
can be internal conflict or external. It can
take place between two men, between the
character and his psychology, between the
character and circumstances or between
character and society.

Use of language or diction: Diction is

another essential element of drama. A
playwright exhibits the thoughts of
characters through dialogue. "Dialogue"
has come from the Greek word "dialogosa"
which means "conversation". Shakespeare
used this to portray the thoughts, emotions
and feelings of the character. This also
provides clues to their background and
personalities. Diction also helps in
advancing the plot. Greek philosophers
like Aristotle used dialogue as the best
way to instruct their students.

Foreshadowing: Foreshadowing is
another important element of literature that
is applied as hints or clues to suggest what
will happen later in the story. It creates
 suspense and encourages the reader to go
on and find out more about the event that
is being foreshadowed.Foreshadowing is
used to make a narrative more authentic.

Elements of Poetry

Poetry is literature in a metrical form. However, free-verse became

the popular style towards the modern and post modern age. Like
fiction, it may not have plots, setting, etc, yet it has a structured
method of writing. There are various kinds of poetry such as ballad,
sonnet, etc. All these forms have some elements such as style,
theme, rhyme, rhythm, metaphor, etc. that are described below:

Style: Style refers to the way the poem is written. Poems are written
in various styles, such as free verse, ballad, sonnet, etc., which
have different meters and number of stanzas.

Symbol: Symbol represents the idea and thought of the poem. It

can be an object, person, situation or action. For example, a
national flag is the symbol of that nation.

Theme: Like other forms of literature, poetry has a theme of its own.
Theme contains the message, point of view and idea of the poem.

Imagery: Imagery is another important element that a poet often

uses in poems that appeal to our senses. In the age of modernism,
T.S. Eliot used images of urban life in his poems. Wordsworth used
nature as poetic images in his poems.

Rhyme and rhythm: Rhyme is an element that is often used in

poetry. It’s a recurrence of an accented sound or sounds in a piece
of literature. Poets and lyricists use this device in various ways to
rhyme within a verse. There is internal rhyme, cross rhyme, random
rhyme and mixed rhyme. It gives the poem flow and rhythm. It
contains the syllables in a poem. Every poem has a rhythm in it. It’s
about how the words resonate with each other, how the words flow
when they are linked with one another in a poem.

Meter: This is an important rhythmic structure of poetry. It is

described as sequence of feet, each foot being a specific series of
syllable types - such as stressed/unstressed and makes the poetry
more melodious.

Alliteration: Alliteration is another element used in poetry for the

sound effect. It indicates two or more words with same repetition of
initial letter, for example, "dressy daffodils". Here the sound of the
letter ‘d’ is repeated.

Simile: A simile is a figure of speech used for

comparison in the poetry with the words ‘like’ or ‘as’,
for example, "as black as coal".

Metaphor: Metaphor is used in poetry to make an

implicit comparison. Unlike simile, here the
comparison is implied, for example, ‘Her laughter, a
babbling brook’.

Onomatopoeia: This is one important element of

poetry, which refers to words that sound like their
meaning, for example, buzz, moo and paw.

Element of literature includes all the elements that

are essential to create a piece of literature. These
elements help a writer to create splendid poetry,
superb drama and soul-touching novel. These
elements are used to form the structure of a literary
piece.