Contextual Reading Approaches

Sociocultural Approach

1. Feminism
- concerned with "the ways in which literature (and other cultural productions)
reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression
of women" (Tyson, 1983).
- It uplifts women goals by defining and establishing equality in the family, civil, social,
political, and economic arena

Questions to Consider
Feminist Lens:
- is the female character in the story empowered? Or discriminated?
- Is the author male or female?
- Is the text narrated by a male or female?
- What types of roles do women have in the text?
- Are the female characters the protagonists or secondary and minor characters?
- Do any stereotypical characterizations of women appear?
- What are the attitudes toward women held by the male characters?
- What is the author’s attitude toward women in society?
- How does the author’s culture influence his/her attitude?
- Is feminine imagery used? If so, what is the significance of such imagery?
- Do the female characters speak differently that the male characters? In your
investigation, compare the frequency of speech for the male character to the
frequency of speech for the female characters.

Filipino Feminist short stories:

1. The "Summer Solstice” Written by Nick Joaquin (a known feminist) it is a short story
that has received recognition both critical and praising.The items in conflict were
paganism against Christianity, the primitive against the civilized, and the status of men
against the status of women.

It is a prowoman story. A tale of triumphant woman because of the husband's

submission to his wife, the portrayal of women's reproductive role that made them
rulers of men.
 2. The short story written by Paz Latorena titled "Desire" is about a woman who longed
to be loved and valued for who she is, not for what she have or could give. The story
shows women’s objectification in the society, as the title itself, desire, the protagonist
was desired by men because of her ideal body that they neglect who she truly is.
Where it may mirror the present, people has this certain standard of beauty that they
look for.

2. New Historicism
- Deals with the cultural context during the writing of the piece of literature.
- this approach interprets literature for its meaning or idea in a particular socio-
historical atmosphere
- how the history happened

Questions to consider
- What was happening in the world at the time the book was written? What was
occurring during the time in which it was set?
- What were some major controversies at the time the book was written? The time in
which it was set?
- What is similar about the views and “facts” of this book and other books written in
or about the same era? What is different?
- How did the public receive the work when it was first published?
- How does this text fit into the rules of literature in the era in which it was written?

Linguistic Approach
- This literary reading adheres to Roland Barthes’s famous maxim, “the author is
dead.” Reading through a linguistic context focuses on the language used in the
literary work and how it is used to convey meaning.
1. Formalism/ New Criticism
- This approach focuses on form, stressing symbols, images, and structure and how
one part of the work relates to other parts and to the whole.
- it is concerned exclusively with the text in isolation from the world, author, or
reader.

Questions to consider:
- 1. How is the work’s structure unified?
- 2. How do various elements of the work reinforce its meaning?
 - 3. What recurring patterns (repeated or related words, images, etc.) can you find?
What is the effect of these patterns or motifs?
- 4. How does repetition reinforce the theme(s)?
- 5. How does the writer’s diction reveal or reflect the work’s meaning?
- 6. What is the effect of the plot, and what parts specifically produce that effect?
- 7. What figures of speech are used? (metaphors, similes, hyperbole, personification,
etc.)
- 8. How does the writer use paradox, irony, symbol, plot, characterization, and style
to enhance the story?
- What effects are produced? Do any of these relate to one another or to the theme?
- 9. Is there a relationship between the beginning and the end of the story?
- 10. What tone and mood are created at various parts of the work?
- 11. How does the author create tone and mood? What relationship is there
between tone and mood and the effect of the story?
- 12. How do the various elements interact to create a unified whole?

Sample Analysis

1. The poem by Edith Tiempo titled “Bonsai”, if it is to be analyzed thru formalism

approach it can be interpreted as -- love could be scaled down to simple objects and
memories so that it could be preserved by passing it on to another. However, if the
poem is to be seen thru feminism approach it could be interpreted that – a woman's
love (pertaining to the writer) is present socially, economically, and morally. She
regards her mementos, memories, and values important in giving love. She is also
expected to act with acceptable behaviour that she could pass on to the younger
generation.

References:

Literary Criticism: Questions for a Variety of Approaches

https://salirickandres.altervista.org/formalist-criticism/
https://www.slideshare.net/katherinekhaye/bonsai-a-literary-exploration
https://www.athenscsd.org/userfiles/37/Classes/970/feminist_criticism.pdf?id=2194
POETRY
- Poem is a composition that uses words to evoke emotions in an imaginative way.
- Poetry is a type of literature that conveys a thought, describes a scene or tells a story in
a concentrated, lyrical arrangement of words.

Types of Poetry

Lyric Poetry

- uses song-like and emotional words to describe a moment, an object, a feeling, or a

person. Lyric poems do not necessarily tell a story but focus on the poet’s personal
attitudes and state of mind. They use sensory language to set the scene and inspire
emotions in the reader.

Narrative Poetry

- A narrative poem tells a story. Also known as epic poetry, narrative poetry is often set to
music as ballads. Narrative poems are usually of human interest and include epics, or
long stories.

Descriptive Poetry

- Descriptive poetry is the poetic equivalent of a portrait or a landscape painting. It is

realistic and does not delve into emotions and metaphor.
- Basically using words to create mental images of places, people and activities through a
more detailed observation of sounds.

Subtypes:

Sonnet - a descriptive fourteen-line poem with a specific rhyme scheme

• Petrarchan or Italian sonnet

- Originating in Italy, the sonnet comes from the Italian word sonetto, meaning "little
song" or "little sound."
- this sonnet structure consists of first an octave (eight lines of verse in iambic
pentameter) and then a sestet (six lines). The rhyme scheme is abba abba; the
rhyme scheme in the sestet can vary a little but is typically cde cde or cdc dcd.

• Shakespearean sonnet
- is a variation on the Italian sonnet tradition.
 - each line is 10 syllables long written in iambic pentameter. The structure can be
divided into three quatrains (four-line stanzas) plus a final rhyming couplet (two-line
stanza). The Shakespearean sonnet rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef gg.

Haiku

- is a form of Japanese poetry made of short, unrhymed lines that evoke natural imagery.
Haiku can come in a variety of different formats of short verses, though the most
common is a three-line poem with a 5-7-5 syllable pattern.

Elegy

- a reflective poem to honor the dead

- an elegiacal poem addresses themes of mourning, sorrow, and lamentation; however,
such poems can also address redemption and solace. Overall, the artistic language of
poetry allows such sentiments to be expressed and articulated in the form of elegy.

Limerick
- a five-line poem that consists of a single stanza, an AABBA rhyme scheme, and whose
subject is a short, pithy tale or description.
- most limericks are comedic, some are downright crude, and nearly all are trivial in
nature.
- Limericks often appear as nursery rhymes. Perhaps the most widely recited of these is
“Hickory Dickory Dock”:
“Hickory, dickory, dock. The mouse ran up the clock. The clock struck one, The mouse
ran down, Hickory, dickory, dock.”

Ballad
- A popular narrative song passed down orally.
- it usually follows a form of rhymed (abcb) quatrains alternating four-stress and three-
stress lines.
- a form of narrative verse that can be either poetic or musical; not all ballads are
songs.

Ode
- is a short lyric poem that praises an individual, an idea, or an event.
- In ancient Greece, odes were originally accompanied by music—in fact, the word
“ode” comes from the Greek word aeidein, which means to sing or to chant.
- Odes are often ceremonial, and formal in tone.
 - An ode poem is traditionally divided into three sections, or stanzas:

o The strophe. In a Greek ode, the strophe usually consists of two or more lines
repeated as a unit. In modern usage, the term strophe can refer to any group of
verses that form a distinct unit within a poem.
o The antistrophe. The second section of an ode is structured the same way as the
strophe, but typically offers a thematic counterbalance.
o The epode. This section or stanza typically has a distinct meter and length from
the strophe and antistrophe, and serves to summarize or conclude the ideas of
the ode.

Epic
- is a lengthy, narrative work of poetry.
- typically detail extraordinary feats and adventures of characters from a distant past.
- the word “epic” comes from the ancient Greek term “epos,” which means “story, word,
poem.”

Sound Devices:

Alliteration
- is a literary device that repeats a speech sound in a sequence of words that are close to
each other.
- uses consonant sounds at the beginning of a word to give stress to its syllable.

The Raven By Edgar Allan Poe

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,”

Assonance

- Assonance, or “vowel rhyme,” is the repetition of vowel sounds across a line of text or
poetry. The words have to be near enough to each other that the similar vowel sounds
are noticeable.
- The etymology of assonance is the Latin “assonare,” meaning “to sound.”
- chief function of assonance in poetry is to create rhythm
 Edgar Allen Poe frequently employed assonance, including in “The Raven” (1845):

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore —
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

Consonance
- is the repetition of the same consonant sounds in a line of text.
- These alike sounds can appear anywhere in the word, but will usually be found at its end
or middle, or at the end of the stressed syllable.
- from the Latin “consonantem,” meaning “agreeing in sound.”
- What’s vital is that the repetition occurs in quick succession, as in:
pitter-patter
twist and shout

Onomatopoeia
- Onomatopoeia is a literary device where words mimic the actual sounds we hear.
- often used by poets because it allows the reader to visualize the scene by creating a
multi-sensory experience, all with words.

Rhyme
- is the use of corresponding sounds in lines of writing.
- can occur at the end of lines or in the middle.
- to create a rhyme, the piece of writing has to have two or more similar-sounding words.
- can be used to help unify a piece of poetry or create a specific effect.
- might make the poem sound more upbeat or more haunting, depending on how it’s
used.

Rhythm
- can be described as the beat and pace of a poem.
- rhythmic beat is created by the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line or
verse.
- In modern poetry, line breaks, repetition and even spaces for silence can help to create
rhythm.
- can help to strengthen the meaning of words and ideas in a poem.
References
https://www.infobloom.com/what-is-descriptive-poetry.html
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/poetry-101-what-is-a-shakespearean-sonnet-learn-about-
shakespearean-sonnets-with-examples#what-is-a-shakespearean-sonnet
https://blog.prepscholar.com/what-is-a-sonnet-poem-form
https://literarydevices.net/elegy/
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/poetry-101-what-is-a-limerick-in-poetry-limerick-definition-with-
examples#variations-on-limericks-in-poetry
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/ballad
https://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-alliteration-poems.html
https://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-onomatopoeia-poems.html
https://poemanalysis.com/literary-device/rhyme/
Philippine Literature – “Si Mabuti”

Genoveva Edroza-Matute
• retired teacher
• In 1980, she was the head of the Philippine Normal College under the Department of
Filipino, and Dean of Instruction
• known Feminist
• received four Palanca Awards for her creative works
• the first prize she was awarded was in 1951 for her short story entitled Kuwento ni
Mabuti.

“Si Mabuti”
• Why did her students call her Mabuti?
o She always say the word Mabuti
o The narrator sees her as a good mother to her child and a good teacher to them
• Who are the characters in the story?
o Si Mabuti
o Narrator
o Mag-aaral
o Anak na babae
o Ama ng anak ni Mabuti

• Narration/ Point of View

o What point of view is used?
- First person point of view is used in the story
o Who is telling the story?
- The student, (the name is not mentioned in the story)
- The writer of the story is the one who’s telling the story.
o Why is she telling the story?
- She was inspired by the strong personality of Mabuti as a woman.
- She’s telling not only a story but the reality of life.
o How is the story told? What technique is used?
- It is told by recalling the important circumstances happened in her
life.
- Flashback
 • Setting
o School
- library
- classroom

• Plot

when the father of Mabuti’s

daughter was mentioned in class

The encounter of the narrator

and Mabuti in the library.

the whereabouts of Mabuti Narrator’s realization

• Conflict
- Man vs Himself

• Theme
- To persevere the battles of life

After examining the story “Si Mabuti” thru Feminism and New Historicism approaches it
can be deduced that the story: empowered the female character and that conservatism is
present in the text as it also reflects the author’s milieu and the cultural context of its
production.
Philippine Literature – “Tata Selo”
Author: Rogelio Sikat

- novelist ,storyteller, dramaturge, interpreter,

professor of literature, creative writing, language
and translation
- was a professor at UP Diliman
- former Dean of the College of Arts and
Literature in UP 1991-1994
- Notable works:
Impeng Negro (1962)
Tata Selo and Moses, Moses

Tata Selo

• Won the Palanca Awards, 2nd prize for Filipino

Short Stories (1963)
• Published in the anthology “Mga Agos sa Disyerto”
in 1965

Formalism/ New Criticism

- A perspective under the umbrella of linguistic context that focuses on the language used
in the literary work and how it is used to convey meaning
- it is concerned exclusively with the text in isolation from the world, author, or reader

Plot Structure

- In medias res
- (Latin: “in the midst of things”)
- Supplies exposition thru flashbacks or conversations
Theme

- Injustice

Point of view/ Narration

- Third-person objective
- has a neutral narrator that is not privy to characters’ thoughts or feelings. The narrator presents
the story with an observational tone.

Setting

- Sakahan
- Istaked
- Munisipyo

- Atmosphere

Naggitgitan ang mga tao, nagsiksikan, nagtutulakan, bawat isa’y naghahangan makalapit sa istaked.

Naggitgitan at nagsiksikan ang mga pinagpawisang tao. Itinaas ng may-katabaang alkalde ang
dalawang kamay upang payapain ang pagkakaingay. Nanulak ang malaking lalaking hepe.

Situational irony occurs when the actual result of a situation is totally different from what you’d expect
the result to be.

Characters

Flat Characters

- Kabesang Tano mga pulis

- Alkalde o Presidente kahanggan ni Tata Selo
- Hepe
- binatang mayaman
- Tata Selo
o Round character
o The story revolves around him
o was characterized as weak, helpless,polite, and a loving father
 - Saling
o daughter of Tata Selo, who worked for the captain in his house but went home to Tata
Selo sick, the nature of sickness we know little about but may pertain not to a
conventional sickness but to a sickness of which woman reputation is at stake.

***
Through Tata Selo’s struggle for justice, Rogelio Sikat were able to use his protagonist to
symbolically represent the injustices that the poor are experiencing as well as the exploitation of the
landlord to his tenant/ kasama.

Filipino social belief present in the story: “utang na loob” and “padrino system”
 Vietnam
Literature
ASEAN LITERATURE
 About Vietnam
National language: National traditional dress: Ao Dai
- Quoc-ngu

Religion:
- combination of three religions:
Taoism, Buddhism, and
Confucianism
Government: Socialist State
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
 About Vietnam
National traditional dress

In the northern part of the country, the

In the south, women also wear ao ba ba, a more simple traditional dress is called ao tu than, which
blouse with a scoop neck and buttons in the center, often means 'dress of four parts.' It is made with
worn with a conical hat. four panels of fabric, a long sash in the front,
and is worn with a large, flat, round hat.
Vietnamese culture

- one of the oldest in Southeast Asia and is heavily

influenced by the Chinese culture.
- French colonial rule introduced Catholicism and
Latin alphabet.

● Value of Reputation ● No tipping culture

● Elders are respected ● Family and clan are valued
over individualism
● Their war history is sacrosanct
● Ghosts are real ● Cuisine - Rice, Pho
Vietnamese culture

Vovinam – Viet Vo Dao

- a very well-developed tradition of martial arts that is heavily influenced
by Chinese martial arts.
- genuine Vietnamese Martial Art (“Vo” means “Martial Arts”; “Vinam”
stands for “Vietnam”)
- “Viet Vo Dao” has been added, to become “Vovinam – Viet Vo Dao”
Vietnamese culture

Full Moon Festival

“Tết Trung Thu” (in Viet)

The Full Moon Festival, or Mid-Autumn Festival

Celebrated on the 15th day of the eighth month of the Chinese Han and
Vietnamese calendars
Vietnamese culture

Vesak
● the festival commemorating
Buddha’s birth, enlightenment
and death
● the holiday is known as Phật
Đản and will widely be
observed on May 29th.
● candles are lit on floating lotus
flowers and sent out into rivers
around Vietnam.
Vietnamese culture

“Tet Festival”

- Tet Nguyen Dan

- the most important
festival of the year in
Vietnam

- Celebrated as a time of renewal, Tet

serves as an opportunity for Vietnamese
people to pay homage to their ancestors
and have family reunions
Vietnamese Literature
Background
● Sino-Vietnamese was the language of literature
and government, employing Chinese characters.
● Quoc-ngu, is a relatively recent invention,
becoming established in the 19th century.
● the study of Chinese literature

Temple of Literature (Van Mieu)

Vietnamese Literature
Folk Literature
Myths, Epics, Legends , Fairy tales, Folk Ballads, Proverbs,
sayings, Narrative verses, Folk theatre: puppet theatre,

Folk verse (ca dao):

Ai ơi bưng bát cơm đầy
Dẻo thơm một hạt, đắng cay muôn phần
(Man, when you bring a bowl full of rice
Each tasty seed equals to thousands of bitterness)
Sayings (tục ngữ):
Ăn cỗ đi trước, lội nước theo sau
(If you go to a banquet, go ahead, but if you go to muddy place,
go after).
Vietnamese Literature

Medieval literature (10th-19th century)

- influences of Buddhist, Confucianist, and Taoist
thoughts in literature
The tale of Kieu (beginning part)
In the hundred-year span of a human life,
Talent and destiny are always apt to strife.
Through experience of a harrowing change,
What we witnessed filled our hearts with tearing pain.
‘Tis not a wonder that Heaven gives then takes,
And with the fair sex He used to be jealous.
Vietnamese Literature
Tale of Kieu
Vietnamese Literature
Modern literature
● closely linked to the country’s ongoing political
struggles.
○ Voices and sentiments in literature (Ho Chi Minh’s
declaration and the disappointment of writer’s from
South Vietnam)
○ Resistance against French and American forces
● French Romanticism
○ The New Poetry
○ Realism
Vietnamese Literature

Post-war & Post-Reform literature

● Memories of the war

● Female writers and the

expressions of gender and
sexuality

● Writings of/ about ethnic

minorities
Vietnamese Literature

Post-war & Post-Reform literature

● Depictions of daily life in

peace time

● Internationalization and
travel writings
○ Viet kieu
Vietnam Literature – A School Boy’s Apology

By Le Thanh Huan

• The poem is bound up in the Vietnam’s history, specifically their war history; the 2 decades of
war killed millions of soldiers, villagers, men, women, and children.

Historicism/ Historical Approach

• Under the umbrella of sociocultural reading context

• Historicism or traditional historical criticism is a perspective dealing with the history that
influenced the writing of literature.

Analysis

• Stanza 1
- The boy apologises for his actions in class, worried that he might become nuisance/cause
interruption in class.
- typical school scenario
- A student having trouble in paying attention at school as he sleeps during lecture and
sometimes shout and scream.
• Stanza 2
- presented the hopeful dream of the speaker
- Being free and no worries; clinging to his fantasies
• Stanza 3
- HIS REALITY
- The word “ BUT” was used as a contradiction on the 2nd stanza

Historical Approach
The most immediate effect of the Vietnam War was the staggering death toll.
The war killed an estimated 2 million Vietnamese civilians, 1.1 million North Vietnamese troops,
200,000 South

• Stanza 4
- The speaker described what was happening around him
- The line “ My home will be burnt to the ground”
- The speaker sounds s sure that this is going to happen.

Historical Approach
The My Lai massacre was one of the most horrific incidents of violence committed against
unarmed civilians during the Vietnam War. A company of American soldiers brutally killed most
of the people—women, children and old men—in the village of My Lai on March 16, 1968.

• What reality of life is reflected in the poem?

- Trauma

• Type of poetry
- Narrative poem
o tells a story
o has full storyline with all the elements of the traditional story
o The poem contains the story/experience of the speaker, his memory of the war that
haunts him wherever he is
- Literary device
o Visual Imagery- appeals to the reader’s sense of sight by describing something the
speaker or narrator of the poem sees.
Vietnam Literature – The Cherished Daughter

-- Anonymous (c. 1700 AD)--

trans. Nguyen Ngoc Bich
from World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from Antiquity

• Written in 1700s
• A folk poem
• Unknown authors
• Based on work chants, love chants, ballads, riddles, and sayings
• Themes of love, marriage, religion, work, and nature

Analysis

- the daughter is longing to get married however, because of their culture and respect to her mother, she needs
to follow and obey what her mother ought her to do.

Speaker
• The daughter
• The speaker seems exasperated (intensely irritated and frustration) on the first 3 stanzas of the poem
and the last stanza indicates desperation.

Theme
- Marriage
- Mother and daughter and relationship

Vietnamese Culture present in the poem:

o Filial piety - a Confucian virtue of honouring the elders in family

- service to one’s parents
o Family and clan are valued over individualism
- Family have a major voice in the selection of wives and husbands of their children, they
consider the following factors: social status, and consulting horoscopes often done by
Buddhist monk.

What poetry type is The Cherished Daughter?

- Lyric Poetry- A lyric poem is a private expression of emotion by an individual speaker. It is also
highly musical and can feature poetic devices like rhyme and meter.

Language in the Poem

- Literary/Sound Device
▪ REPETITION
“ Mother, I am eighteen this year and still without a husband.
What Mother, is your plan?”
o the repeating of any words, phrases, sentences, or lines within a poem.
o the primary way of creating a pattern through rhythm
o it brings attention to an idea
▪ Metaphor: Magpie
o believed to bring good fortune and good luck