English 11: Literature and Society

A study of various literary genres as a dynamic interaction

between the individual and social and cultural forces
SYLLABUS
(August 2013 ed.)
General Objectives:
1. To enable students to understand literary tests and to help them
explore the texts various contexts;
2. To introduce students to critical approaches; and
3. To hone the students reading and writing skills.
Specific Objectives:
1. To help students explore and analyze the formal elements of the
various literary genres;
2. To examine differing views in literary texts and encouraging
students to critically examine their own perspectives within
national and global contexts; and
3. To enable students to place themselves in the midst of social,
historical and cultural flux.
Course requirements (minimum):
1. Two (2) exams (Poetry and Fiction);
2. Dramatization of a play (considered an exam);
3. One (1) paper;
4. Extra credit: Reports by volunteers.
Recommended texts:
Prism, By Yolanda V. Tomeldan, et al.
Getting Real: An Introduction to the Practice of Poetry, By Gemino H.
Abad
The Lonely Voice, Frank OConnor
Our Peoples Story: Philippine Literature in English, By Gemino H. Abad
and Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo
Part I.
Introduction: How to Read a Literary Work
The Literary Work as Representation, Gemino H. Abad (Getting Real: An
Introduction to the Practice of Poetry, Abad)
Bonus: Creative Non-Fiction
An Introduction:
http://www.uvm.edu/wid/writingcenter/tutortips/nonfiction.html
Once More to the Lake, EB White

APFlores/UPDECL/ENG11/English11-Syllabus

(An essay on the topic: What I Did Last Summer)

Supplementary material:
http://www.mainetravelmaven.com/2011/07/03/chasing-memories-ongolden-pond-long-before-the-movie-maines-belgrade-lakes-weredrawing-fishermen-summah-rusticators-writers-and-even-beautyqueens/
Part II
Short Fiction
Day 1: Introduction to Fiction: The Short Story and Its Reader
The Blank Page, Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen)
http://www.whiterabbit.net/@port03/Dinesen/BlankPage/blank_page.ht
m
Notes from the Authors Introduction of The Lonely Voice, Frank
OConnor
Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes, JD Salinger
Day 2: The Text and Its Formal Elements
Plot, what is it
Happy Endings, Margaret Atwood
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~rebeccal/lit/238f11/pdfs/HappyEndings_Atw
ood.pdf
In a Grove, Ryunosake Akutagawa
http://lackdown.weebly.com/uploads/6/3/9/8/6398150/dsfsdfssdfdsf.pdf
(Also in Prism)
Day 2: Narration and Point of View
POV, what is it
Hills Like White Elephants, Ernest Hemingway
The Lady with the Lapdog, Anton Chekov
http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/LadyWith.shtml
The Chieftest Mourner, Aida Rivera-Ford
Sara Cole: A Type of Love Story, Russel Banks
Immortality, Yiyun Li (A Thousand Years of Prayers, Harper Perennial,
2005)
Day 3: Character
Character, David Lodge (How Fiction Works, Ibid, pp.95-106)
Generations, Ninotchka Rosca
Hunger, Gilda Cordero Fernando (Prism)
The Summer Solstice, Nick Joaquin (Prism)
Day 4: Setting
What is setting?
Six Feet of the Country, Nadine Gordimer (Prism)

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The New Dress, Virginia Woolf (Prism)

Faith, Love, Time and Dr. Lazaro, Gregorio Brillantes (Prism)
Day 5: Symbol
Writing About Short Fiction (some tips on imagery and symbolism)
The Lottery, Shirley Jackson
http://sites.middlebury.edu/individualandthesociety/files/2010/09/jacks
on_lottery.pdf
Listening material:
http://archive.org/details/NBC_short_story
(Go to the menu on the right side and click on The Lottery)
The Lottery, Chris Abani
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/01/magazine/lives-the-lottery.html
Day 6: Theme
Theme, what is it?
Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
The Mismanagement of Grief, Charlson Ong
Fruit Stall, Merlinda Bobis
Oldtimer, Jose Y. Dalisay
The Pura Principle, Junot Diaz
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2010/03/22/100322fi_fiction
_diaz
Day 7: Literary Kind as Context: Initiation Stories
Araby, James Joyce (Prism)
Bread of Salt, NVM Gonzalez
Reconnaissance, Tara FT Sering (Reconnaissance, UP Press)
A Wilderness of Sweets, Gilda Cordero Fernando
Day 7: Form as Context: The Short Story
Girl, Jamaica Kincaid
She Unnames Them, Ursula Le Guinn
Listening material:
http://www.ursulakleguin.com/mp3s/She_Unnames_Them.mp3
Day 8: Cultural and Historical Contexts
Read on The Philippine-American War (1899-1902); Battle of Manila
(1945)
A Wilderness of Sweets, Gilda Cordero-Fernando (Story, Anvil)
People in the War, Gilda Cordero-Fernando (Story, Anvil)
Day 9: Critical Contexts: Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Gabriel Garca Mrquez - Nobel Lecture: The Solitude of Latin
America". Nobelprize.org. 22 May 2013

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http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1982/marqu
ez-lecture.html
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Art of Fiction No. 69, The Paris Review
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3196/the-art-of-fiction-no-69gabriel-garcia-marquez
The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World: A Tale for Children
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Day 12: Exam
Part III
Introduction to Poetry
Day 13:
Introduction to Poetry
What is Poetry?
Overview: http://learn.lexiconic.net/poetry.htm
Poetry, Pablo Neruda
The Poets Obligation, Pablo Neruda
The Text and Its Formal Elements
A. Review: The Literary Work as Representation, Gemino H. Abad
(pp. 61-74, Getting Real, 2004)
B. The Elements of Poetry
http://learn.lexiconic.net/elementsofpoetry.htm
http://learn.lexiconic.net/poetry.pdf
Lyric 7: First a Poem Must be Magical, Jose Garcia Villa
(Doveglion and Other Poems, Penguin)
Poetry, Marianne Moore (Prism)
Form (Prism)
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufock, TS Eliot
Ode on a Grecian Urn, Keats
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, Dylan Thomas
Two Translations of a Haiku, Issa
Three Translations of a Haiku, Basho
Day 14
Imagery
Because I Could Not Stop for Death, Emily Dickinson (Prism)

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The Panther, Rainer Maria Rilke (Prism)

1 JANUARY 1899, Alfredo Navarro Salanga
Day 15:
Diction (Prism)
Diction/ Precision/Ambiguity
The Rose Tree, William Butler Yeats
On The Rose Tree
And What Are Words? Gemino H. Abad
Stopping By Woods on A Snowy Evening, Robert Frost
Day 16
Tone (Prism)
What the Rich Think of the Masses, Emmanuel Lacaba
Telephone Conversation, Wole Soyinka
The United Fruit Company, Pablo Neruda
A Eulogy of Roaches, Bienvenido Lumbera
Day 17:
Language
Metaphor and simile
Metaphors, Sylvia Plath
Poetry, Marianne Moore
Symbol
Sounds of Poetry
Jabberwocky, Lewis Carroll
The Red Wheelbarrow, William Carlos William
Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening, Robert Frost (Prism)
Situation and Setting
At the Embassy, Jose Y. Dalisay
Softness, Joel M. Toledo
Day 18:
Internal Structure
First a poem must be magical, Jose Garcia Villa
External Form
Day 19: External Form
Reading material:
Some Traditional Forms: Villanelle, Sestina, Pantoum, Sonnet, Gemino
H. Abad (Getting Real, UP Press)
Villanelle

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Sestina
Sestina, Elizabeth Bishop
Pantoum
Sonnet
Shall I compare thee to a summers day, William Shakespeare
Leda and the Swan, William Butler Yeats
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/172064
The Emperors New Sonnet, Jose Garcia Villa
The way a poem looks
1(a, ee Cummings (Prism)
The Emperors New Sonnet, Jose Garcia Villa
The Bashful One, Jose Garcia Villa
Mock Orange, Louise Gluck
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/179759
Day 19: Exploring Contexts
Volunteer: Report on the life of Sylvia Plath
Critical contexts: Sylvia Plath
Daddy, Sylvia Plath
Other Sylvia Plath poems
Day 20: Literary Tradition as Context
Echo and Allusion
Poetic kinds: the pastoral
Haiku
Imitating and Answering
Come, live with me and be my love, D. Day Lewis
Shall I compare thee to a summers day, Howard Moss
Inviting a Tiger for a Weekend, Jose Garcia Villa
I Dont Invite the Tigers, Agustine, Ricaredo Demetillo
Day 20: Cultural Belief and Traditions. Cultural and historical
contexts.
Day 21: Critical Contexts
Day 22: Exam
Part IV
Introduction to Drama
Day 23: Introduction to Drama (Prism)
The Nature of Drama
The Greek Theater
American Expressionism in Theater, YV Tomeldan

APFlores/UPDECL/ENG11/English11-Syllabus

Collective Class Exam: Dramatize one

Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams
An agreed upon play

APFlores/UPDECL/ENG11/English11-Syllabus