LITERATURE I

Literature – as language is our greatest invention, so is literature our greatest art.
- art of written works
- acquaintance with letters

Philippine Literature – associated with the Philippines and includes the legends of prehistory, and the colonial legacy of the Philippines, written in both Indigenous and Hispanic languages.

Reasons for Studying Literature

1. To benefit from the insight of others. The body of world literature contains most available knowledge about humanity--our beliefs, our self-perception, our philosophies, our assumptions and our interactions with the world at large. Some of life's most important lessons are subtly expressed in our art. We learn these lessons only if we pause to think about what we read. Why would anyone bury important ideas? Because some ideas cannot be expressed adequately in simple language, and because the lessons we have to work for are the ones that stick with us.

2. To open our minds to ambiguities of meaning. While people will "say what they mean and mean what they say" in an ideal world, language in our world is, in reality, maddeningly and delightfully ambiguous. If you go through life expecting people to play by your rules, you'll only be miserable, angry and disappointed. You won't change them. Ambiguity, double entendres and nuance give our language depth and endless possibility. Learn it. Appreciate it. Revel in it.

3.To explore other cultures and beliefs. History, anthropology and religious studies provide a method of learning about the cultures and beliefs of others from the outside looking in. Literature, on the other hand, allows you to experience the cultures and beliefs of others first-hand, from the inside looking out. The only other way to have such a personal understanding of others' beliefs are to adopt them yourself--which most of us aren't willing to do. If you understand where other people are coming from, you are better equipped to communicate meaningfully with them--and they with you.

4. To appreciate why individuals are the way they are. Each person we meet represents a unique concoction of knowledge, beliefs, and experiences. In our own culture we find an infinite variety of attitudes and personalities, hatreds and bigotries, and assumptions. With each exposure to those who differ from us, we expand our minds. We may still reject their beliefs and assumptions, but we're one step closer to understanding them.

5. To expand our grasp of the machinations of history. History and literature are inextricably entertwined. History is not just names and dates and politics and wars and power. History is about people who were products of their time with their own intricately-woven value systems. Study of literature enhances our appreciation of history's complexity, which in turn expands our appreciation of present political complexities and better equips us to predict and prepare for the future.

6. To exercise our brains. Our brains need exercise just like our bodies do. Don't balk at picking up the barbell and doing a few mental curls. Great literature has hidden meanings that won't slap us in the face like childrens' books will; we'll have to dig and analyze like an adult to find the gold.

7. To teach us to see individual bias. In a sense, each of us is an unreliable or naive narrator, but most of us mindlessly accept the stories of certain friends or family without qualification. We should remember that they are centers of their own universes, though, just like we are. They are first-person narrators--not omniscient--just like we are. The only thing that suffers when we appreciate individual bias is our own gullibility.

8. To encourage us to question "accepted" knowledge. As children, most of us were taught to believe what we're told and those basic hypotheses provide our schemas, or building blocks of knowledge. As we grow, we learn to question some ideas while rejecting the offensively alien ideas outright, often without real examination. However, human progress often results from the rejection of assumed "facts." The difficulty lies in spotting our own unexamined assumptions. The more ideas we expose yourself to, the more of our own assumptions we can root out to question and either discard or ground our lives in.

9. To help us see ourselves as others do. Literature is a tool of self-examination. You will see your own personality or habits or assumptions in literature. The experience may even be painful. While our ego defense systems help us avoid self-scrutiny and ignore others' observations or reactions to us, literature serves as a mirror, revealing us to ourselves in all our naked, undefended glory.

10. To appreciate the contributions literature has made to history. The pen is mightier than the sword, yes? When a country undergoes regime change, the new regime imprisons, exiles or executes the intelligentsia--scholars and philosophers--who are seen as the keepers of the culture, creators of ideology, and instigators of revolt. See Russian, Chinese, and German history for examples. In American history, see the copious examples of pro- and anti-slavery literature as well as Thomas Paine's and Thomas Jefferson's contributions to the American Revolution.

11. To see the tragedy. Lenin said "A million deaths are a statistic, but one death is a tragedy." History gives you the statistics. Literature shows you the human tragedy.

12. To further our mastery of language. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words build and destroy nations. Study of literature hones our language skills and teaches us new and valuable techniques for communication. A master of language can seduce your emotions and inspire you to follow him into death--or he can crush your will with a word. Language is the single most important tool of leadership and great leaders embrace its study.

13. To recognize language devices and appreciate their emotional power. Like good music, poetry uses wordplay, rhythm, and sounds to lull the reader into an emotional fog, and therein deliver its message. Great leaders learn to harness these techniques of communication and persuasion. Listen closely to effective advertisements and politicians and lawyers. Listen to the pleasing rhythm and wordplay of their mantras, and watch the sheep blithely flock to them: "It does not fit--you must aquit!" "Crisp and clean and no caffeine!" Politicians use prolific parallelism: "We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail."

14. To explore ethical complexities. Only children find ethical rules cut and dried. Literature forces readers to challenge their simplistic ethical conceptions and sometimes their outright condemnation of others' actions. For example, we believe lying is wrong. But what do we mean? Do we never lie? Have you ever met a person rude enough to follow this rule implicitly? Be advised, though: ethical exploration is a mature endeavor; it is not for the thin-skinned.

15. To see the admirable in everyday life. We are surrounded by unsung nobility and sacrifice. Once we learn to see it in the actions of common folk, our lives will be forever richer, as will our faith in humanity itself.

16. To learn better ways to behave. An untold amount of our opinions and words and reactions are absorbed during childhood and from our culture. Literature teaches us better courses of action and more effective responses to situations...if we let it.

17. To know we aren't alone. Others have been where we are, have felt as we feel, have believed as we believe. Paradoxically, we are unique just like everyone else. But we aren't alone. Others were here and they survived...and may have even learned from it--and so may we.

18. To refine our judgment. This involves several aspects of reading: exposure to new ideas and new ways of looking at old assumptions, expanded vocabulary and understanding, and improved ability to write. Altogether, these benefits refine our ability to think, and thus guide us toward informed, mature judgment.

19. To learn to support our points of view and trust our own interpretations. We provide evidence for our interpretation of a story or poem when we explicate it. When we build a solid case in support of our opinion, we build self-confidence in our own interpretations of language itself.

20. To develop empathy for those who are unlike us. Literature can train and exercise our ability to weep for those who are not us or ours. As children, our circles of concern stop with ourselves. As we grow, we expand those circles to our families and friends, and perhaps to our neighborhoods, towns, cities, states or countries. Our study of literature continues to expand that realm of concern beyond the things we physically experience.

21. To expand our vocabularies. New words are tools for grasping new ideas. Each new idea is a building block upon which we may acquire more knowledge. Knowledge is power.

22. To improve our writing skills. We didn't perfect our writing skills in grade school or high school. Many people have failed to grasp the basics by 18. We learn to speak by listening and imitating; we learn to write by reading and imitating.

23. To learn to use our language well. In order to do this, we must immerse ourselves in it. Since most college graduates tend to use words a fifth-grader can understand when speaking, simply speaking the language is insufficient for continued improvement. Literature, however, presents at infinite variety of ideas, words and expressions.

24. To improve our reading comprehension. Most people stop improving their reading comprehension in high school, if not before. Improvement in this area pays obvious dividends throughout our professional careers. We improve by reading and analyzing what we read.

The Language of Literature

To all my students in Literature 1, kindly copy the following.

THE LANGUAGE OF LITERATURE

What is distinctive about the language of literature?

One of the views of literature suggested in our previous discussion is that literature involves a special, or unusual, use of language. Let us explore this idea further and consider any classroom implications arising from it.

Here are a number of different texts. Read through each one and decide whether or not you think it is a literary text. If not, then think about where the text might have come from. Note down any language in the text which helped you to make your decisions.

1. As this is small Edwardian terraced house with natural light, Venetian blinds were chosen to cover the windows. They screen the street scene during the day and add to the impressions of space given by the light walls and modern furniture. Curtains in deep coral would have looked heavy, but the sunshine that streams through the blinds keeps the overall effects light.

2. Three grey geese in a field grazing.
Gray were the geese and green was the grazing.

3. As Democrats head toward a showdown with President Bush on Iraq, a leading Republican warned that they are making an all – too – familiar mistake: not listening to seasoned commanders. Rep. C.W. Bill Young (news, bio, voting record), R – Fla., said catastrophe always follows when civilians turn a deaf ear to their military officers. In the 2003 run – up to the war, Young said in an interview, administration officials dismissed a top Army officer’s estimate that securing Iraq would probably require several hundred thousand troops.

4. Give me a pure heart that I may see You, a humble heart that I may hear You, a heart of love that I may serve You, a heart of faith that I may abide in you.

5. Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

6. His breast of chicken with tarragon and girolles goes back to the classic French repertoire: the skin of the fowl crisped to the gold, odorifeously swathed in a thick creamy sauce, golden also, piled with fleshy mushrooms fried in butter till they take on the gleam of varnished wood.

7. The acting crowd is usually the most interesting type to students of sociology because of its well – known behavior. In the acting crowds, the emotion of the group becomes intense, and the crowd performs collective action toward an object. Another more popular name for this type of crowd is the term mob. We frequently read newspapers accounts about mob behavior.

8. We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and ocean, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.

9. One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

10. One day at the pillar, three studs startled Stripe. Three big caterpillars had fallen from some place and smashed. Two seemed dead but one still wiggled. Stripe whispered, “What happened? Can I help?” He made out just a few words. “The top they’ll see…butterflies alone…”the caterpillar died.

11. I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work – a life’s work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit, something which do not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listen to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will someday stand where I am standing.

12. A butterfly was in love with a white rose. One day, the butterfly proposed to the rose, the white rose told him that when she turns red that is the only time she’ll love him. The butterfly did not fly, instead, he cut his body and spread his blood on the rose. The rose turned red and fell in love with the butterfly. However, the butterfly was no longer alive. “Love sacrifices” are sometimes useless especially if that someone doesn’t know how to appreciate. They’ll come to realize important things when it’s already too late.

13. Faced with a veering, crazy – making, constantly fragmenting contemporary world, a new breed of fiction writer is emerging. What’s remarkable about their work, which represents some of the best novels and short stories being written today, is not only how inventively it portrays the complex realities of life on the edge of the 21st century, but also how gracefully it moves beyond the literary trends of the recent past.

14. The gulls who scorn perfection for the sake of travel go nowhere, slowly. Those who put aside travel for the sake of perfection go anywhere, instantly.

15. You will begin to touch heaven. Jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn’t flying a thousand miles an hour or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn’t have limits. Perfect speed my son, is being there.

“The only true law is that which leads to freedom,” Jonathan said. “There is no other.

16. She is wearing a purple tube paired with a silver skirt. Moreover, the silver skirt is sprinkled with Swarovsky crystals by King Anthony House of Gems and Crystals on its lining. As she walks along the aisle, my eyes popped into amazement because of the mind blowing beauty that she brings to the crowd.

17. Josephine, Josephine Who to these shores have come Looking for a nest, a home, Like a wandering swallow; If your fate is taking you To Japan, China or Shanghai, Don't forget that on these shores A heart for you beats high.

18. Ang iyong buhay pag-ibig ang pinakamalaking pinagmumulan ng iyong kasayahan ngayong buwan. Sa mga single, maaaring mapagtanto na ang iyong hinihintay na tao ay darating sa mga di inaasahang pagkakataon.

19. The door opened and my brother Leon and Maria came in. "Have you watered Labang?" Father spoke to me. I told him that Labang was resting yet under the barn. "It is time you watered him, my son," my father said. I looked at Maria and she was lovely. She was tall. Beside my brother Leon, she was tall and very still. Then I went out, and in the darkened hall the fragrance of her was like a morning when papayas are in bloom.

20. Nang kumalat sa Internet ang picture ni Willie Revillame kasama ang isang babaing naka – pajama ay marami ang naging espekulasyon. Agad na kinausap ng The Buzz Magazine and Wowowee host tungkol sa isyu at ipinaliwanag niyang kaibigan lang ang naturang babae, na nakitulog sa kanyang resthouse sa Tagaytay kasama ang maraming friends nila.

21. Kahit ano,
kaya kong
pasarapin.

Kahit sino,
kaya kong
pasayahin.

22. Mainit na mainit ang ugong na ang sikat na male TV and movie personality ay nahuhumaling sa isang sikat na female TV personality.

23. Ta nupay no agayatac
Iti maysa a imnas
Aoan lat’ pangripripiripac
Nga adda pacaibatugac.

Ilunodconto ti horas
Nga innac pannacayanac
Ta mamenribo coma a naseseat
No natayac idin ta nayanacac

Natural laeng ti panagbiddut,
nu ti puso ken panunot,
ket maandingay ti sulisog ken sappuyot ni panunut.

Ngem ti tao nu agbiddut weno agbasol man,
ada lata siled ti panagbabawi.
Aturen na dagiti biddut na
ket sapulen na ti nalinteg a dana
nga mangitunda kenkwana iti taeng ni ragsak ken
namnama.

24. There was a girl who argued with her boyfriend because she asked a ring for her birthday but her boyfriend gave a talking doll instead of a ring. The girl refused to accept the doll then she threw it away. The guy run as fast as he could to save the doll but an approaching car hit him. Then, he died. In the burial, the girl was crying, she grabbed the doll then hold it tight. The talking doll spoke saying, “Will you marry me? Please get the ring from the doll’s pocket, hope you like it.”

25. Waste not, want not.
In the new age of high fuel prices,
and environmental awareness.

The days of conspicuous are over,
today we face the need to do more with less.
And not to be responsible with for the world,
we live in.

26. I think I have more than enough experience. But still, I’m willing to learn more.

27. Something inside has changed. And the change came as a surprise. Some of you may say that our cover is very…Let me share with you a little secret. Our cover…it may look different, but it feels right. As a magazine, I dare say we have still so much to offer…not just a men’s magazine anymore. The changes are forthcoming and are bigger than ever. But the biggest change is …the new BACHELOR is not afraid to show that he also has a heart.

28. There was a blind girl who hated herself for being blind. She hated everyone except her boyfriend. The girl said that if she can only see the world she will marry her boyfriend. One time, someone donated eyes to her and saw everything including her boyfriend. Her boyfriend asked her, now that you can see me, will you marry me? The girl was shocked when she saw that her boyfriend is also blind and she refused to marry him. Her boyfriend walked away with tears and said, “just TAKE GOOD CARE of my EYES.”

The Essence of Studying Humanities

To all my students in Humanities I, kindly copy the following.

The study of humanities is essential as the world shrinks due to the explosion of information technology. Those who master the humanities and can "walk a mile in someone else's moccasins" will be far more marketable than those who can't. Those people who master cross-cultural understanding will be more successful than those who don't.

But, that is only the shell of a humanities education. Humanities study brings us in contact with the best life has to offer - History, music, art, philosophy, and literature. It is the study and contact with these topics that enrich our existence. Moreover a solid grounding in the humanities tends to extend our consciousness making us better people. Whether politically conservative, liberal, or independent the study humanities leads you through the development of thought and catapults ones understanding of why things are the way they are.

Top Ten Reasons to Study Humanities

1. To develop your mental flexibility through the practice of the critical thinking skills of analysis and synthesis.
2. To improve your communication abilities through the development of reading, thinking, writing, and speaking skills.
3. To learn to integrate information, ideas, and opinions from a variety of sources and perspectives.
4. To gain a global perspective thorugh a knowledge of world cultures.
5. To increase your respect for cultural and individual differences through a knowledge of the achievements of world civilizations.
5. To experience the connection between culture and your own community through museum visits, concerts, theatre performances and the support of local artists.
6. To clarify your personal values through the analysis of multiple viewpoints in ambiguous moral situations, examining the process of valuing, and understanding the nature of moral decision making.
7. To increase your personal resources for wisdom and perseverance through a study of the many different ways people have handled difficult situations in history, literature, philosophy, mythology, and religion.
8. To come to know what is enduring by studying what humans have found valuable throughout time.
9. To have your spirit awakened and your love of learning inspired by encountering and joining the great minds and hearts of human history in the search for meaning.