Philippine World Literature

• Literature (origin of term- litera which means letter in latin) a broad term that refers to written or spoken works of art with artistic and intellectual value. Literature comes from the French phrase “belles-letters” which means beautiful writing.
• Literature serves as an avenue to express ones ideas, thoughts and emotions. Serves as a way to understand human nature fully and to know one beliefs, culture and tradition.
• Serves as a record of one thought and experiences accessible to others. Fires the imagination and amplifies ones creativity.
• Literature appeals to people's emotions. Through literature , we have a way of discovering oneself
• Artistry (quality which appeals to our sense of beauty.) Intellectual value (a literary work stimulates thought enriches our mental life by making us realize fundamental truths about life and human nature)
• Artistry (quality which appeals to our sense of beauty.) Intellectual value (a literary work stimulates thought enriches our mental life by making us realize fundamental truths about life and human nature)
• 3. Suggestiveness (this is the quality associated with the emotional power of literature, such that it should move us deeply and stir our creative imagination, giving and evoking vision above and beyond the plane of ordinary life and experience.)
• 4. Spiritual Value (A good literature levates the spirit and the soul by bringing out moral values which makes us better persons-this capacity to inspire is part of the spiritual value of literature.
• 5. Permanence ( A great work of literature endures across time and draws out the time- it can be read again and again as each reading gives fresh delight and new insights and open new worlds of meaning and experience.)
• Universality (Great literature is timeless and timely –forever relevant in terms of its theme and conditions. It appeals to everyone regardless of culture, race, sex, and time which are considered significant.
• Prose Drama- a drama in prose form. It consists entirely of dialogues in prose, and is meant to be acted on stage.
• Essay


  a short literary composition which is expository in nature . The author shares some of his thoughts, feelings, experiences or observations on some aspects of life that have interested him.
• Prose Fiction 


  (something invented, imagined or feigned to be true) a. Novel- a long fictitious narrative with a complicated plot. It may have a main plot and one or more sub-plots that develop with the main plot. Characters and actions representative of the real life of past or present times are portrayed in a plot. It is made up of chapters. Example: Noli Me Tangere.
• Short Story


  A fictitious narrative compressed into one unit of time, place and action. It deals with a single character interest, a single emotion or series of emotions called forth by a single situation. It is distinguished from the novel by its compression.
• Biography

  a story of a certain person’s life written by another who knows him (the former) well.
• Autobiography a written account of man’s life written by himself.
• Letter- a written message which displays aspects of an author’s psychological make-up not immediately apparent in his more public writings. It is a prose form which by the force of its style and the importance of its statement becomes an object of interest in its own right.
• Diary- a daily written record or account of the writers' own experience, thoughts, activities or observations.
• Journal- a magazine or periodical especially of a serious or learned nature.
• LITERARY GENRES

  a. Fiction b. Poetry c. Essay

  d. Drama
• MYTH - a traditional story in prose concerning details of gods and demigods and the creation of the world and its inhabitants
• HEROIC NARRATIVES OR EPIC - folk epics that narrate the adventures of tribal heroes which embody in themselves the ideals and values of the group
• ETHIOLOGICAL LEGENDS - legends that explain how things came to be, why things are as they are
• FOLK TALES - prose narratjve regarded as
• Animal Tale - a folktale using animals as characters.
• Folk Speech - simplest form of oral literature.
• Folk Speech - simplest form of oral literature.
• Riddles - description of objects in terms intended to suggest something entirely different.