Module 1: Lesson 2

Genres of Literature and their Elements

We will look at the distinctive qualities of each of the four literary genres. But first, let’s discuss
what we mean by “literary.” By “literary” we strictly mean artistic written expression as opposed
to traditional forms like myths, epics, folktales, legends, ballads, proverbs, folk drama which had
oral culture as their life and basis. When we “read” such verses and narratives from print sources,
what we’re reading are versions or variations that were recorded from selective moments in their
highly dynamic oral circulation in the communities that originated them. In their purely oral
state, these tales and songs constantly evolve as members of the community retell them countless
of times among one another. As for epics, a bard composes as he or she performs, or recites from
memory but freely recomposing at times and drawing from a rich stock of communal tropes and
knowledge. They don’t originate content in the way we understand modern authors do—bards
and storytellers of the oral universe defer to tradition and are self-effacing and anonymous. In
contrast, modern authors of print culture are self-expressive, have bylines, and hold copyrights to
their individual works.

Because print culture encourages the solid formation of words on the page rather than the
creative flux of oral and communal composition, literary authors are likelier to develop their own
voice and style, a self-conscious view of the world and their own art. It is in this context that
fiction emerged as a modern genre in contrast to older forms of narrative in the oral tradition.
Fiction—aside from its being written down rather than orally transmitted, and it’s being
attributed to a named author rather than communally composed—differs from older forms of
narrative in its status as imaginative writing, whereas myths, epics, and the like are thought of by
their communities as circumstantially true (that is, not the “fictive” product of the someone’s
imagination). The content of myths, epics, and folktales appear marvelous to us only because we
tend to contrast it to the “realism” of our daily ordinary lives, but in the consciousness of those in
the oral communities who shared these myths and tales, reality is just that, marvelous. (We will
pursue this point later in Unit 3 Lesson 4 on magical realism or the “marvelous real” in Latin
American literature.) 

As imaginative writing, fiction (as well as modern poetry and drama) is written by authors who
self-consciously make use of creative techniques and devices to render their theme (the intended
meaning of the poem or story, the main point or insight) in the best way possible. Ironically, it is
in creative distortion and the use of figurative rather than plain language that the truth for a
literary author is most clearly expressed. Even works of fiction written in plain language will,
when analyzed, reveal itself to have been creatively distorted too, with the use of plain language
itself just another device for producing the author’s intended truth effects.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best: “Fiction reveals the truth that reality obscures.” Fiction,
rather than plainly reflecting reality, creatively refracts it to show something that would have
otherwise escaped our attention (and this is true even in realism, the mode of fiction that aspires
to verisimilitude).

In the formalist view, literariness is the apt use of devices, techniques, and figurative language in
the careful shaping of the elements of a poem or story to communicate a point or insight. The use
of creative techniques must not feel forced or artificial; verbosity or shallow, decorative
applications of figurative language do not qualify as literariness.

Fiction is basically prose narrative, its distinctive feature being the centrality of plot action. The
propeller of plot action is the presence of conflict (a disturbance in the statue quo or the way
things are), and the narrative proceeds as complications arising from the conflict add up and
reach a climax wherein the situation becomes finally unbearable and begs to be resolved.

This is the turning point of the story, when the protagonist arrives at a very important realization
or makes a decision that changes the course of events, and the conflict is resolved. A critical
question to ask is the nature of the conflict’s resolution—what insight is offered by the particular
way the conflict was resolved? In realism with fully fleshed-out, well-developed complex
characters, the resolution is accompanied by psychological insight into the depth of human
personhood. In social realism, an oppressive social issue is critiqued as played out in the
characters’ personal circumstances, usually ending with an insight intended to raise awareness in
the readers. There are also problematic resolutions as those pointed out by Resil B. Mojares in
Origins and Rise of the Filipino Novel (1983): according to him, at an early point in the
development of the Filipino novel (early 20th century), when writers in the vernacular languages
rooted in the rich tradition of romance in the awit and corrido were learning the ropes of writing
social realism, there came hugely popular serialized novels in local magazines that were of the
uneasy realist-romantic hybrid kind, dealing with new historical anxieties but using tropes
familiar to the common folk.
In these transitory novels situated between two traditions of differing conventions (romance and
realism), a social issue is raised as plot conflict, but the resolution tends to be romantic rather
than realist in nature, in effect not resolving the social issue at all. For example, in a conventional
plot that is still very much used in its many permutations in today’s television dramas, a pair of
lovers who come from conflicting social classes and whose families object to their union are in
the end either married, because one of them turns out to be a long lost heir, or unable to marry
because they turn out to be siblings or cousins (or, if the conflict turns out to be totally
unresolvable, they both die and are united in the afterlife). In the happy ending of a marriage, the
status quo initially disturbed is restored with the social structure and its injustices still intact; at
best, there is hope that the heir who experienced class mobility is now in a better position to
create some change but from a new position of power and influence in the same social structure.
In the unhappy ending of the lovers finding out that they are relatives, the conflict is resolved by
invoking a moral taboo rather than by constructive social means. Yet, however problematic these
resolutions might be, Mojares reads in them a nascent resistance that comes from realist elements
adjusting a romantic framework: “The mere act of dramatizing these conflicts is already a [form
of] criticism…in that it shows that this order has ceased to be stable and monolithic. By stressing
the individual sensibility, it weakens the absolute claims of dogma. By showing the triumph of
love over parental authority, of the individual over social custom, it points the way to the
subversion of this order” (1983, 198).

Fiction is not just about plot, however. Fiction is an interplay and interlayering of other elements
like character, setting, point of view, and tone. Like the other genres, fiction makes use of
figurative language, especially symbol (when an ordinary object in the story acquires great
significance, for example a house whose physical features are symbolic of what the family
members are like) and irony (or a disparity, which is usually a site of complexity or critical
insight, for example characters whose words conflict with their actions, or events that turn out to
be the opposite of expectations). 
Aside from the elements, we also have what we call the modes of fiction: realism and romance
(which we had briefly touched on and will discuss a little bit more later), a wide range of modes
under speculative fiction (marked by the presence of fantastical or elements that don’t belong to
this world we consider “rear —fantasy, science fiction, futurist fiction, horror, gothic, magical
realism, traditional/modern/retold fairy tales and folktales, slipstream, and many more), and
metafiction (which is best approached not as a mode but as a tendency in fiction to reflect upon
the fictional [or constructed] quality of the “real” lives we live). For the sake of brevity, we’ll
focus on realism (but will discuss its opposite, romance) and touch on a bit about metafiction
because these will be the main generic concerns when we read the literary texts selected for this
lesson (for fantasy as a variant of speculative fiction, refer back to Lesson 2).

In studies of the modes of fiction, realism and romance are considered opposites (not realism and
fantasy, as one might expect). At this point, it’s going to be helpful to think of modes as versions
of reality that skillful authors self-consciously choose as frameworks through which their
narratives will unfold.

In the romance mode, according to Northrop Frye “the ordinary laws of nature are slightly
suspended” (1973, 33). It’s like looking at reality through rose-tinted glasses. The characters are
rendered superior to other people and the environment: for instance, the characters are able to
overcome conflicts and restrictions posed by social or environmental structures. The romance
mode is empowering—it idealizes, aggrandizes, positively exaggerates; it enables us to look at
the banal or ordinary with a sense of wonder; it reconfigures the flatly normal as infused with
rich symbolisms. (Note that the romance mode is different from Romanticism as literary
movement, and a story in the romance mode need not always be a love story.) In romance mode,
a story may or may not have fantastical elements; in stories without fantastical elements, the
setting is realistic but presented in a highly imaginative way, in very strong and perhaps poetic or
symbolic imagery.

The romance mode, however, is also escapist. Nonreflexive stories in the romance mode are
unapologetically escapist—that is, there is no indication in the story whatsoever of any critical
attitude to the escapism espoused in it. On the other hand, the more sophisticated stories in the
romance mode tend to betray a self-consciousness about the escapism that is built in it (an
example of a metafictional tendency). This is called the “romantic paradox,” or the motif of the
failed ideal. In a story with a romantic paradox, the romantization appears only as a translucent
veil over a reality that is still shown to be less-than-ideal. For example, in the Palanca winning
short story “The Apartment” (1996) by Clinton Palanca, the setting is overlaid with a dreamy,
golden glow, but the ugliness of the apartment and the eccentricity of the tenants are also
stressed rather than denied. The romance mode thus comes across as an outlook, a choice to see
beauty in the unsightly, the unattractive, the repulsive.

Another example of the romantic paradox at work: in trauma fiction that uses the romance mode,
a past traumatic event that keeps on haunting the present and opening old wounds finds closure
in a therapeutic choice to see the good or beautiful in the traumatic event. Romantic closure in
the realm of the imaginary, in this case, crosses over to the painful reality of unresolved trauma.
Fictive closure gives way to the real, and healing becomes possible.
Realism, by its very name, claims to be the most transparent in its imaginative depiction of
reality. If stories in the romance mode are told in expressive, hyperbolic language, stories in the
realist mode are told in sparse, clinical, straightforward, rational, plain, and prosaic language.
Realism aims for verisimilitude, or the empirical and objective depiction of ordinary people
living in the everyday world. 

However, it’s also worth questioning how “real” is the reality depicted in realism. How does
realism define reality? Is it possible to think of realism as an outlook rather than as the most
“truthful” of all the modes of fiction? Is it possible that what we assume to be the “everyday
world” mirrored in realist fiction is actually an ideologically shaped reality?

Moreover, is it possible to think of “objectivity” as not reality itself but another version of it?
The truth claim in realism sets the rational outlook as the standard, as though magical thinking is
less valid or inferior in value.

There is a variety of realism called “naturalism” or “social realism” that makes apparent this
ideological nature of perceived reality. Stories in this mode take up themes generally considered
disturbing: extreme poverty, horrible crimes, victimization, social inequality; the aim is to shock
readers into realizing that their comfortably sheltered life is just a version of reality, and that
horribly unthinkable realities happen in the everyday for some people who live outside their
realm of “real” experience. In fact, at closer inspection, stories in the realist mode are almost
always ideologically oriented towards this direction—while claiming to be objective and clinical
in its dissection of everyday reality, realist fiction actually aims to present life as worse than it is:
a disillusioned, demystified, disenchanted take on life as filled not just with banality or boredom,
but with violence, inequality, injustice, and brutality.

Opposite the romance mode, the realist mode involves the shattering of (false) idealism. As an
outlook, the realist mode looks at life in its bleak materiality, its harshness. The characters are
typically constrained or overwhelmed by societal, cultural, or environmental limits. Stories in the
realist mode are usually devoid of a moral center, though characters are driven to make moral
choices in a seemingly amoral universe.

Like the romance mode with its “romantic paradox,” realism has its “realist paradox” too, which
can go in either of two directions, or both. Realist stories depict life in its ordinariness, its
boredom, but also its horrid monstrosity: for example, in Timothy Montes’s “The Housemaid”
(2007), 16-year-old Cirila’s very ordinary life in the province is shattered when she is sold by her
father to an older man who can take sexual liberties with her. Such disturbing events are depicted
as ordinary. In the other direction of the paradox, residual beauty is found in starkly
disconcerting environments. In the same story, Cirila who has all her life felt abandoned finds a
genuine friend in a prostitution house, of all places, in the person of a prostitute named Gina.

Before we move forward to discussing poetry, let’s talk about this hybrid genre that incorporates
elements of fiction and poetry in the retelling of a personal experience. In autobiography,
biography, autobiographical narratives, memoir, and essays in the tradition of “new journalism”
or “literary journalism,” literariness (as explained above) is considered in the depiction of real
events and people. It is through the use of literary devices that insight about real people (oneself
included) and events are best teased out.

Memoirists understand that in unearthing memories of the past, we can’t help being selective in
the details to include in or exclude from the memory. Nobody can fully remember the past,
nobody can access the past in its pure objectivity. To some degree, then, narrating a memory
inevitably involves fictionalization of the past; memories are constructions of past events rather
than objectively retrieved data from the past. It inescapably involves reimagination and
revaluation of the past based on who we are at present. Of course, to say that memories are
fictional constructs does not mean they did not happen; the events actually happened, but our
recall of them is heavily mediated by our interpretation of them. Works of creative nonfiction
like the memoir are built on this idea which is similar to metafiction.

In another short story by Clinton Palanca titled “In Days of Rain” (1996), the first few
paragraphs establish not only the romance mode of the story as a nostalgic recollection of
childhood. It is also metafiction that works around the fine lines dividing nonfiction, fiction,
poetry (and to some extent, cinema). It is a work of 4ction that possibly uses actual childhood
memories as material for creative but truthful reconstruction. In the story, the past is remembered
as poetic imagery, with a “cinematic soundtrack” underscoring the narrative. The narrator sees
his younger self and his childhood friends as though they are living in a novel or film. This
brings up the idea (or fact?) that we tend to remember the past in cinematic or novelistic terms,
i.e., we see it as a movie playing in our heads, complete with soundtrack, characterizations of the
people in the memory, symbolization of the setting, reconstruction of dialogue, and other literary
devices. 

Mina Roy defines poetry as “prose bewitched.” If fiction is mainly concerned with plot action,
poetry is “life distilled” (says Gwendolyn Brooks) through words and language. (This is of
course not to say that action is not present in poetry, and that language play is not used in
fiction.) Poetry works via suggestion, implication, and ambiguity rather than via literal,
straightforward communication—which, though clear and singular in meaning, is too rigid or flat
for the rich, multifarious, fresh, intense, complex, even unusual ways of looking at the world that
poetry is mainly concerned to express. Poems are primarily relished as words as the building
blocks of this art—how their meticulous selection, arrangement, and calculated interplay deliver
ideas, feelings, perspectives, shades, flavors, and layers of meaning.

There are three general types. Lyric poetry expresses the thoughts, ideas, or feelings of
the speaker or persona. It is often in the first person, with the speaker either directly involved in
the dramatic situation or speaking from a detached observation point. Whereas lyric poetry
tackles a condensed moment, draws a single scene, or focuses on a single event, narrative poetry
deals with a series of events (i.e., plot action). In dramatic poetry, the speaker is an imaginary
character addressing another imaginary character who remains silent; this is also called dramatic
monologue. If the listener replies, or if there is a conversation, the poem is called a dialogue.
1. Theme: the main point or the insight to ‘be derived from the poem.
2. Speaker/persona: the fictitious character whose voice we hear in the poem. In the
same way that a narrator is not necessarily the author, the speaker is not necessarily
the poet and not necessarily human (though usually possessing human traits). The
speaker may either be an observer or a direct participant in the dramatic situation that
he/she/it is speaking about.
3. Dramatic situation: the moment (in lyric poetry) or series of events (in narrative
poetry) that the speaker speaks about in the poem.
4. Diction: the poem’s choice of words, with each word suggestive in terms of its
meaning, sound, and placement together with other words. Words may be
abstract/concrete, general/specific, formal/informal, denotative/connotative. An
allusion is a word chosen for its direct reference to a well-known historical or
fictitious person, place, thing, or event. Typically used as shortcuts, allusions convey
compressed ideas in a single reference.
5. Figurative language/figures of speech: comparisons or substitutions that, for the sake
of freshness, emphasis, or surprise, depart from the usual denotation of words. In other
words, nonliteral use of language.
o Simile and metaphor: express similarity between dissimilar things (whereas
literal language would express similarity between obviously similar things).
Simile focuses on a single aspect of the likeness and uses connectives (like,
as, than, such as, resembles, etc.). Metaphor does not use connectives but
states that one thing is something else, imply-ing a likeness in nature.
Metaphors suggest several aspects of likeness. A conceit is an elaborate and
complicated metaphor.
o Metonymy: a word is substituted by another closely associated with it, e.g.,
“between the cradle and the grave” (between birth and death), “the pen is
mightier than the sword” (pen is a metonym for writing, sword for
fighting). In synechdoche, a part stands in for the whole (or vice versa),
e.g., “sail” standing in for ship; asking for one’s “hand” in marriage.
o Paranomasia/pun: a form of wordplay involving two similar sounding
words but with different meanings. In “Ask for me tomorrow and you shall
find me a grave man” (a line in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet), two
meanings of the word “grave” are used: “grave” which means serious, and
grave as a metonym for death.
o Personification/anthropomorphism: human qualities are given to inanimate
objects, animals, or abstract terms (like love, nature, truth, death, etc.).
o Apostrophe: the speaker addresses someone or something who is absent,
dead, does not/cannot respond, or is not ordinarily spoken to.
o Hyperbole: an overstatement or an exaggeration for the sake of emphasis.
An understatement, on the other hand, implies more than what is said.
 o Oxymoron: a combination of contradictory words or ideas, e.g., “wise
foolishness,” “bittersweet.”
o Paradox: a strange or self-contradictory statement that is
apparently (or surprisingly) true.
6. Image: word or words that appeal to any of the five senses (nor just visual as the term
“image” may suggest) to convey a Hash of understanding. Imagery refers to a cluster
of sensory perceptions, all the images in a poem taken to mean something together
rather than separately; in most cases, the sequencing of the images is significant as
well. In sensory crossovers called synesthesia, one sensory perception is expressed in
terms of another, e.g., “loud shirt.” A symbol is an object with literal presence in the
poem but whose meaning or significance is greater and beyond the literal.
7. Tone: the manner of the poem, could be the speaker’s attitude toward a subject
(himself/herself/itself, an object, another character, an event, or an idea). Tone is
usually an effect of diction and may be affectionate, hostile, earnest, playful, sarcastic,
respectful, serious, humorous, surprised, angry, nostalgic, tender, expectant, etc.
8. Irony: saying one thing but meaning another; a manner of speaking that implies a
discrepancy between words and their meanings, actions, and their results, between
appearances and reality.
o ironic point of view: the speaker’s tone differs from the poet’s (i.e., the
intended meaning contradicts the tone).
o Verbal irony: a word is used to actually mean the opposite. Sarcasm is a
type of verbal irony with a bitter or mocking tone.
o Dramatic irony: a character says, does, or encounters some-thing whose
significance is greater than what he/she understands—and the reader is
aware of this. In tragic irony, the reader is aware of the impending downfall
of a tragic hero who does not foresee it.
o Situational irony: discrepancy between what is expected to happen and
what actually happens. Cosmic irony or irony of fate is a type of situational
irony wherein there is a discrepancy between a character or speaker’s
aspiration and what is actually received at the hands of fate.
9. Sound: patterns of consonants and vowels, in tandem with meaning, that contribute
greatly to the poem’s effect. For example, the sibilant “s” in “calm is the sea, the
waves work less and less” suggests the sound of swishing water.
o Euphony: the sound of the words are harmonious together. Cacophony: the
sounds are harsh or discordant, e.g., the grating sound in “Grate on their
scrannel pipes of wretched straw.”
o Onomatopoeia: a word that imitates the sound it denotes, e.g. “zoom,”
“crash,” “bang,” “buzz.”
o Alliteration: the repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of
or inside successive words (e.g., “so smooth, so sweet, so silvery is thy
 voice”). Assonance: the repetition of the same vowel sound at the
beginning or inside successive words (e.g., “eager beaver”).
o Rhyme: two or more words contain the same combination of vowel and
consonant sounds.
10. Rhythm: the recurrence of stresses and pauses in a poem. A stress or accent is a
greater amount of force (breath, loudness, pitch) given to one syllable. Meter refers to
stresses that occur at fixed intervals. Poems that follow a rhyme scheme, stanza
pattern, or a particular meter are said to have fixed forms (blank verse, sonnet,
limerick, villanelle, rondeau, triolet, sestina, haiku, tanka, ghazal, pantoum, sapphics).
Poems that don’t follow the conventions of fixed forms are called free verse or open
form. However, open forms still follow internal organizing principles in terms of
spacing, lineation, repetitions, indentations, pauses and stresses, visual effect, etc.
o Iambs, anapaests, trochees, dactyls: terms referring to rhythm and meter,
o Couplet, tercet, quatrain, sestet, octave: terms referring to numbers of
lines.
o Enjambment/run-on: one line carries over into the next line without any
punctuation. The opposite called end-stopping is when a line ends with
punctuation (full stops, semi-colons, or colons).
o Scansion: marking the stressed and unstressed syllables in a poem to
determine its meter. 
Like poetry, drama is also an ancient form of communal expression. Unlike modern fiction that
encourages reflective isolation and individuation in the act of reading, poetry and drama are best
enjoyed when performed (or read aloud rather than using just the eyes), with the sounds and
rhythms in poetry heard and the spectacle in drama seen by an embodied audience. Like the
storytellers of the oral tradition (as opposed to the authors of modern fiction), those who
composed plays long ago did not exactly originate content but rather recycled stories and
characters already known in the community into fresh artistic expressions on stage.

However, traditional theater did not always require a stage. In the Philippines, folk and
indigenized dramatic forms like the panunuluyan are communal reenactments of familiar stories,
in this case the biblical tale of Mary and Joseph’s search for a place to stay on the night Jesus
was born. The basic structure of the panunuluyan as described by Nicanor G. Tiongson includes
a procession with candles and a brass band, with Mary and Joseph either as human actors or
images on floats. The procession leaves the church and winds its way through the streets,
stopping at three or more designated houses where the holy couple (or the procession singers)
make a request to stay for the night. “The dialogue, which is cast in the octosyllabic quatrains
associated with the korido and called hakira or romance, is sung in the style of the kundiman, the
native love song which is slow and sad” (2008, 57). The couple is turned away by the house
owners, citing different reasons. The procession returns to the church where a belen or nativity
scene is unveiled for the midnight mass.
Still practiced today as part of Christmas festivities, the panunuluyan retains its basic structure
while incorporating new elements responsive to the times, like the one in Palo, Bulacan in 1983
when the couple were turned away by a house owner who reasoned “they might be the NPA
rebels that the government is looking for,” and another who refused because times were hard
with “the peso depreciating to P14 to a US dollar” (Tiongson 2008, 66). A modern play also
cited by Tiongson is by the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) titled Ang
Panunuluyan ni Birheng Maria at San Jose sa Cubao, Ayala, Plaza Miranda, at Iba. Pang
Lugar sa Loob at Labas ng Metro Manila (1979). This stage play features Mary and Joseph
searching for a place to stay and along the way encountering slum dwellers, hypocrite society
matrons, fishermen and casual employees exploited for their labor (66-67). Both the 1983
Bulacan panunuluyan and the PETA play, by drawing from a rich stock of tales and characters
familiar to the common folk, are able to critique new social formations as they incorporate new
elements into these revitalized traditional forms.

The elements of tragedy are taken up above in the “fill in the blanks” exercise. Comedy, on the
other hand, deals with less serious subjects, but the humor is usually created by the unmasking of
pretentious characters, exposing their folly and doubleness in a satirical way. Comedy ends
happily, but the happy ending can only be achieved after the main characters, say a couple, have
surmounted seemingly insurmountable obstacles for the sake of their love (it is in this way that
comedy is a lot like the romance mode of fiction). The happy ending has to be deserved in this
ideal universe where the characters have fought hard for their happiness.

Tragedy and comedy can be seen as frameworks for understanding life. Tragedy (like realism)
teaches us that bad things happen even to the best of people, and these bad things are not always
caused by external matters. Catharsis or emotional release is achieved when we realize in awe
and fear that if great people of noble character can still have flaws and suffer tremendously
because of it, how much more we ordinary folks in the audience? We watch in dread as a minor
character flaw causes major catastrophe; even great people cannot control the fickle workings of
fate (and this insight runs counter to modern hubris that believes that everything can be
rationalized and controlled). But life is not all tragedy; in ancient Greek drama, a series of three
tragedies is accompanied by one comedy for comic relief. In comedy is the possibility that there
are rewards for good people doing hard work, that no obstacle is too difficult to overcome. In the
positive outlook of comedy, deceit is frowned upon and eventually exposed. A happy ending is
attainable for those who are prepared by difficult circumstances to receive and cherish it.