OUTLINE OF LITERARY FORMS BASED ON

PHILIPPINE HISTORICAL PERIOD

ANCIENT LITERATURE/FOLK LITERATURE

1. Myth – a traditional story in prose concerning details of gods and demigods and the creation of the world and its inhabitants.

Examples:

1. Visayan Creation Myth

2. Bagobo Creation Story

3. Tungkung Langit and Alunsina

Heroic Narratives or Epics

Folk epics which narrate the adventures of tribal heroes which embody in themselves the ideals and values of the group.

Examples:

Lam-Ang

Ulalim

Ibalon

Indarapatra at Sulayman

Ethnological Legends

• Legends which explain how things came to be, why things are as they are.

1. Legend of the Mayon Volcano

2. Legend of the Tagalogs

3. Gaddang

Folk Tales

• Prose narrative regarded as:

a. Animal Tale- a folktale using animals as characters

- Monkey and the Turtle

- The Cow and the Carabao

b. Folk Speech – simplest form of oral literature

1. Riddles – description of object in terms intended and suggest something entirely different.

Example:

Tumakbo si Juan, nahati ang daan.

(zipper)

2. Proverbs – short popular sayings that expresses effectively some commonplace truth or useful thought.

Example:

Ang hindi lumingon sa pinanggalinga, hindi nakararating sa paroroonan.

c. Folk Songs- verse set into music by the members of the community.

Example:

Manang Biday

Dandansoy

POETRY

• Refers to those expressions in verse, with measure and rhyme, line and stanza, and has a more melodious tone.

• Poems are forms of literature usually written in lines or verses that makes up a stanza.

• Poems are designed to be read aloud. The recitation of the poem reveals its rhythm, and thought units that help out the meaning it wishes to convey.

Elements of Poetry1. Sense – it is revealed through the words,

images, and symbols.

a. diction – the denotative and connotative meanings of the words.

b. Images and sense impressions- the words used that appeal to the sense of sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch.

c. Figures of speech- the creative use of words or expressions that poet uses to enhance the sense impression.

2. Sound• This is the result of the creative

combination of words. The poet may resort to the use of anaphora, alliteration, assonance, rhyme, and repetition.

a. Rhythm- the ordered alternation of strong and weak elements in the flow of sound and silence.

b. Meter- the duration, stress number and syllables per line.

c. Rhyme Scheme- the formal arrangement of rhymes in a stanza or in the whole poem.

3. Structure• This refers to the arrangement of words and

lines to fit together and the organization of the parts to form the whole.

a. Word order- the natural or unnatural arrangement of words.

b. Ellipsis- omitting some words for economy or effect.

c. Punctuation- abundance or lack of punctuation.

d. Shape- contextual or visual design, omission of spaces, use of capitalization or lower case.

TYPES OF POETRY

• NARRATIVE POETRY• LYRIC POETRY• DRAMATIC POETRY

NARRATIVE POETRY

This form describes the important events in life either real or imaginary. There are different varieties:

1. Epic – This is an extended narrative about heroic exploits often under supernatural control. It may deal with heroes and gods.

2. Metrical tale- This is a narrative which is written and told in verse.

EXAMPLE:

BAYANI NG BUKID

Al Perez

Ako’y magsasakang bayani ng bukid

Sandata’y araro matapang sa init

Hindi natatakot kahit na sa lamig

Sa buong maghapon gumagawa ng pilit.

Ang kaibigan ko ay si Kalakian

Laging nakahanda maging araw-araw

Sa pag-aararo at sa paglilinang

Upang maihanda ang lupang mayaman.

Ang haring araw di dapat sumisikat

Ako’y pupunta na sa napakalawak

Na aking bukiring laging nasa hagap

At tanging pag-asa ng taong masipag.

Sa aking lupain doon nagmumula

Lahat ng pagkain nitong ating bansa

Ang lahat ng tao, mayaman o dukha

Sila’y umaasa sa pawis ko’t gawa.

Sa aking paggawa ang tangi kong hangad

And ani’y dumami na para sa lahat

Kapag ang balana’y may pagkaing tiyak

Umaasa akong puso’y nagagalak.

2. Ballads- of the narrative poems, this is considered the shortest and the simplest. It has a simple structure and narrate a single incident.

LYRIC POETRY• Originally, this refers to the 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.

• It expresses the author’s mood, emotion, and reflection in musical language.

• It derives its name from the lyre, and was primarily intended to be sung. Not all lyrics are singable, but they are melodious.

1. Folksongs (Awiting Bayan)

• These are short poems, intended to be sung. The common theme is love, despair, grief, doubt, joy, hope, and sorrow.

CHIT-CHIRIT-CHIT

Chitchiritchit alibangbang

Salaginto salagubang

Ang babae sa lansangan

Kung gumiri’y parang tandang

Santo Nino sa Pandacan

Puto seko sa tindahan

Kung ayaw kang magpautang

Uubusin ka ng langgam.

Mama, mama, namamangka

Pasakayin yaring bata

Pagdating sa Maynila

Ipagpalit ng manika.

Ale, ale, namamayong

Pasukubin yaring sanggol

Pagdating sa Malabon

Ipagpalit ng Bagoong.

CHIT-CHIRIT-CHIT (English)

Chit-Chirit-Chit, Alibangbang

Gold bug and the beetle

The street woman

Struts like a rooster.

Child saint of Pandacan

Puto seco in the store

If you don’t want to lend

You’ll be devoured by ants.

Sir, sir, paddling the canoe

Give this child a ride

When you reach Manila

Swap it with a doll.

Lady, lady, with the umbrella

Shade this infant

When you reach Malabon

Swap it with Bagoong.

Sonnets

This is a lyric poem of 14 lines dealing with an emotion, feeling, or an idea. There are two types of sonnet: Shakespearean and Petrarchan (Italian).

EXAMPLE:

SANTANG BUDSby Alfonso P. Santos

Let me see in dreams the santang buds

That in my absence blossom still beside

My window, Crimson buds, like crimson pearls

Ever faithfulness they bloom, unchanged,

Unfailing like the memories of home,

Now is the time, the season of their blooming,

An hour less, an hour more, yet stays

Their crimson evermore unchanged, untouched

Let me but see in dreams the santang buds

That in my absence blooms, in faith for one

Heart lost in foreign lands, fated to share

No love, no fortune from the world but born

To suffer want and misery, decreed

To live unknown, in penitence and need.

ELEGY

This is a lyric poem which expresses the feelings and griefs and melancholy, and whose theme is death.

It may voiced the author’s personal grief for a loved one, or a loss affecting the public as a whole, or it may be just a meditation about death in general.

THE LOVER’S DEATHRicardo Demetillo

He who had lived the earth with a firm love

Is now, being infirm, laid in the earth

That covers him with green grass quietly,

Once when he walked the fields, he suddenly knelt

And with an avid gesture clasped the earth.

His sun-lit fingers sift the dust.

Lovers would write their incoherent view,

On passionate pages, but he, on the pads of meadow,

Wrote with his plow a tongue-tied love.

Field understood, for when the harvest ripened,

Fruits lay like a brown breast for his hands to pluck,

And he with the lightness, touch each pregnant stalk

His house was quiet, like the man who closed

The gate-behind him when the lamplight glowed

He knew no woman’s touch except the earth’s

We thought it fitting that the sun should touch

With quite fingers the rice-fronds in the field

When he, after a fever, gave himself to dusk.

We could not salvage breath, but we could swathe

His body and lay it in the earth he loved

He may return and beckon from a sheaf.

ODE

• This is a poem of a noble feeling, expressed with dignity, with no definite number of syllables or definite number of lines.

• It is the most majestic type of lyric poem. It expresses enthusiasm, lofty praise of some person, thing, a deep reflection, or a restrained feeling.

• The author is in an exalted mood.

PSALMS (DALIT)

• This is a song praising God or the Virgin Mary and containing philosophy of life.

EXAMPLE:

O Mariang sakdal dilag

Dalagang lubhang mapalad

Tanging pinili sa lahat

Ng Diyos Haring Mataas

Itong bulaklak na alay

Aming pagsintang tunay

Palitan mo Birheng Mahal

Ng Tuwa sa kalangitan.

Halina’t tayo ay mag-alay

Ng bulaklak kay Maria

Halina’t magsilapit

Dine sa birheng marikit

Ng Inang kaibig-ibig

Dakilang Reyna sa langit

Ng ampuni’t saklolohan

Tayong mga anak niya.

AWIT

• These have measures of twelve syllables (dodecasyllabic) and slowly sung to the accompaniment of a guitar or banduria.

• An example of awit is FLORANTE AT LAURA by Francisco Balagtas.

• It is a fabrication of the writers imagination although the characters and setting may be European.

EXAMPLE IN FRANCISCO BALTAZAR’S FLORANTE AT LAURA:

Ang taong magawi sa ligaya’t aliw,

Mahina ang puso, lubhang maramdamin,

Inaakala pa lamang ang hilahil

Na daratna’y di na matutuhang bathin

CORRIDO (KURIDOS)

• These have measures of eight syllables (octosyllabic) and recited to a martial beat.

• They were widely read during the Spanish period that field the populace’s need for entertainment as well as edifying reading matter in their leisure moment.

• Deal mostly with courtly love and the chivalric adventures of such heroes as Charlemagne and his peers and El Cid.

Example from “Ibong Adarna”O birheng kaibig-ibig

Ina naming nasa langit,

Liwanagin yaring isip

Nang sa layo’y di malihis.

Ganito ang napagsapit

Ng haring kaibig-ibig

Nang siya’y managinip

Isang gabing naiidlip

Di-umano’y si Don Juan

Bunso niyang minamahal

Ay nililo at pinatay

Ng dalawang tampalasan

May isang ibong maganda

Ang pangalan ay Adarna,

Pag naririnig mong kumanta

Sa sakit ay giginhawa.

DRAMATIC POETRY

Included in this form are: Comedy, Melodrama, Tragedy, Farce, and Social Poems.

1. Comedy – The word comedy comes from the Greek word “Komos” meaning festivity or revelry. This form is usually light and written with the purpose of amusing, and usually has a happy ending.

2. Melodrama- This is usually used in a musical plays with the opera. Today, this is related to tragedy just as the farce is to comedy. It arouses immediate and intense emotion and is usually sad but there is a happy ending for the principal character.

3. Tragedy – This involves the hero struggling mightily against dynamic forces; he meets death or ruin without success and satisfaction obtained by the protagonist in a comedy.

4. Farce- This is an exaggerated comedy. It seeks to arouse mirth by laughable lines, situation are too ridiculous to be true; the characters seem to be caricatures and the motives undignified and absurd.

5. Social poems- this form is either purely comic or tragic as it pictures the life of today. It may aim to bring about changes in the social conditions.

REVOLT FROM HYMENAngela Manalang Gloria (1940)

O to be free at last, to sleep at lastAs infants sleep within the womb of rest!

To stir and stirring find no blackness vastWith passion weighted down upon the

breast,

To turn the face this way and that and feelNo kisses festering on it like sores,

To be alone at last, broken the sealThat marks the flesh no better than a whore's.

RELIGIOUS DRAMAS

PANUNULUYAN

- Literally, seeking entrance, the Tagalog version of the Mexican Posadas. Held on the eve of Christmas, it dramatizes Joseph’s and Mary’s search for lodging in Bethlehem.

- Is also called Pananapatan or Panawagan. Gagharong or Paharongharong in Bicol.

CENACULO

• Was originally just the dramatization of the passion and death of Jesus Christ presented during Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.

• The players either speak their lines in a slow and deliberate way, (hablada); or chant their lines in the manner of pasyon singing (cantada).

SALUBONG

• An Easter play that dramatizes the meeting of the risen Christ and his mother.

THE MORIONES

• Refers to the participants dressed as Roman soldiers, their identities hidden behind the colorful, sometimes grotesque, wooden mask.

• The Pugutan or beheading climaxes the Moriones festival. The headless body is then taken in procession around the town by his fellow soldier and then buried.

THE TIBAG

• Also known as Santacruzan.• It is performed during the month of May

which have a devotion to the Holy Cross. It depicts St. Elena’s search for the cross on which Christ died.

• The Tagalog name TIBAG comes from the act of excavating or leveling the mounds.

THE PANGANGALUWA• An interesting socio-religious practice on

All Saint’s Day which literally means “for the Soul”

• The practice is based on the old belief that the souls in the purgatory are “released” on the night of All Saint’s Day to go begging alms on earth.

• These were generally held during the nine nights of vigil and prayers after someone’s death, or the first death anniversary when the family members put away their mourning clothes.

THE KARAGATAN

• “Open Sea”, comes from the legendary practice of testing the mettle of young men vying for a maiden’s hand. The maiden’s ring would be dropped into the sea and whoever retrieves it would have the girl’s hand in marriage.

THE DUPLO

• A forerunner of the balagtasan. The performers consist of two teams: one composed of young women called Dupleras or Belyakas; and the other, of young men called Dupleros or Belyakos. An elderly man- the Hari or Punong Halaman- presides over the proceedings.

THE COMEDIA

• One of the earliest forms of stage drama which took on a particular aspect; that of a particular play which had for its main theme courtly love, usually between a prince and a princess of different religions – one a Christian, the other a Muslim. These conflicts were resolved in the end, with the victory of the Christians, a propaganda tool which was endorsed by the friars.