MODULE 1.

Lesson 3 and 4: The Poetry; The Element of The Short Story

I. Objectives:

a. to understand the nature of poetry

b. to know better on how to criticize a short story

c. to have a better understanding in literature.

d. to appreciate the beauty of poetry

Reference:

The Literature of the Philippines.Revised edition.Lacia, Ferdilyn etAl.Rex Book Store Inc.2008

Lesson Proper:

Poems are literary attempts to share personal expertise and feelings. Since literature in general, is all
about significant human experiences, poetry’s subject matter is also about the poet’s personal life or
the lives of those around him. Good poem’s, aside from being stated in afresh manner, often probe
deeply and can contain disturbing insights. Good poems show images which leave the reader a sense
of delight, awe, and wonder.

The following elements of poetry will help a reader understand poem:

1. THE POETIC LINE

The basic unit of composition in poems. An idea or feeling which expressed in one line and is
frequently continued into the next line. This is called enjambment or run-on lines.

2. THE SOUND OF WORDS

An indirection prominent in the method of poetry is the use of sound effects to intensity
meaning. For the poet to convey ideas, he chooses and organizes his words into a pattern of sound
that is a part of the total meaning. These sound effects are the products of organized repetitions.
They are the following:

a. Rhyme repeats similar sounds in some apparent scheme.

b. Rhythm is the result of systematically stressing or accenting words and syllables.

c. Alliteration means the repetition foe effect of initial vowels or consonants

e.g. He clasps the crags with crooked hands.

d. Assonance refers to the correspondence of vowel sounds.

e.g. Maiden crowned with glossy blackness

Long armed maid, when she dances

e. Onomatopoeia is along word that means simply the imitation in words of natural sounds.

e.g. Hiss, buzz, mew

Dry clash’d his harness in the icy caves.

And barren chasms, and all to left and t=right

 The bare black cliffs clang’d round him.

3. METER

Is the regularized and pattern rhythm. There are four conventional types of meter in poetry
written in English each being distinguished from the others by the number and accent of syllables.

a. Iambic meter

By far, the most popular and the most natural English expression. Its basic unit or
foot is one unaccented and one accented syllable.

e.g. Whose woods / these are / I think / I know.

b. Troachanic meter

These reverse of iambic meter. Each foot contains an accented and an unaccented
syllable. (-u)

e.g. Swift of / foot was / Hia / watha

c. Anapestic meter

Contains in each foot two unaccented syllables and one acceneted. (u u –)

e.g. For the moon / never beams / with-out bring / ing me dreams.

d. Dactylic meter. Opposite of anapestic. It is slower and often is used to create a strange
mood.

e.g. This is the / forest pri / meval.

Seeing what metrical units are and how mant them occur in the line is called “scanning” a line
of poetry. A one-foot line is called a monometer, two diameter, and others in progression up
to a seven-foot line; thus: trimester, tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter, and heptameter.
Thus, the iambic line above is tetrameter, and the dactylic line a trimester.

4. IMAGERY

More than avisula detail, imagery includes sounds, texture, fee, odors, and
sometimes even tastes. Selection of concrete details in the poet’s way of giving his reader a
sensory image. By means of images, the poet makes the reader think about the meaning of
the poem.

5. TONE

Reveals the attitude toward the subject and in some cases the attitude of the
persona or implied speaker of the poem as well.

Examples of tome are: cheerful, sad, reflective, serious, angry, anxious, and others.
There are however, many shades of tone and these celar-cut divisions could not be easily
established.

II. FIGURES OF SPEECH

Much of the suggestive power of words comes from figures of speech. They are an essential
part of the poet’s craft especially if stated in his original, fresh, and subtle way

1. Simile is a direct expressed comparison between two dissimilar objects by means of the
words like, as or as if.

e.g. Serenity of mind poises

Like a gull swinging in air.

2. Metaphor gives an implied, not expressed, comparison two unlike objects.

e.g. a. Good books are food and drink to an avid reader.

b. When I saw her smile, a stone rolled away from my heart.

3. Personification fives an inanimate object or an abstract idea a human attribute or considers

it a live being.

e.g. a. At last the wind sighed itself to sleep.

b. Break, break, break

On the cold, gray stones, O sea!

4. Apostrophe is an address to the absent as if he were present or somebody dead as if he

were alive or to inanimate things as if they were animated.

e.g. a. Mountain and hills come and fall on me.

5. Metonymy. One word is put for another which it suggests. It consists in giving an idea tha is
so closely associated with another.

e.g. a. The pen is mightier than the sword.

b. Gray hairs should be respected.

6. Antithesis. A contrast of words or ideas. Contrasting words or ideas make each other
emphatic.

e.g. a. Easy writing makes hard reading; hard writing , easy reading

b. His body is active but his mind is sluggish.

7. Hyperbole. Use exaggeration not to deceive but to produce laughter.

e.g. Morning, noon, and night her tongue was incessantly doing.

8. Irony. Saying the opposite of what is meant in a manner or in atone that shows what the
speaker thinks.

e.g. It was very kind of you to remind me of my humiliation.

Activity:

Make your own poem using these figure of speech. At least 2 or 3 lines only.

A. Irony

B. Hyperbole

C. Simile

D. Personification
E. Metaphor

Lesson 4:

SHORT STORY

In the history of literature, fiction, particularly the short story formally developed as a genre
in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States in the 19 th century. Anton Checkhov, Guy
de Maupassnat, and Edgard Allan Poe were the chief proponents who greatly influenced
almost all of today’s short story writers. Checkhov for character studies and anecdote
incidents; de Maupassant for “twist or unexpected ending” and Poe as the master of
suspense.

The short story as an art form deals with a single incident or situation. It is a coherent whole
with a single line of action and a single intended meaning. Thus, it does not allow for many
themes and subplots.

The following are the elements of a short story:

1. Plot

This is the sequence of events or actions in the story. It is the development of the
story in terms of beginning, middle, and end. The beginning contains the conflict which rises
to a climax where the story turns before reaching a denouement or resolution. A good plot is
not based on the twist and turn of events but how much is revealed about characters and the
theme of the story.

2. Characterization

This how a character behaves in a certain situation. His actions will be determined by his
motivation which, in turn, is determined by his personality.

Good characterization is not stereotyped, not a repetition of the same traits of other
characters. It is just seeing a range of different aspects of traits just as one does in someone
one knows well

2.1 Character

A character is a person or sometimes even an animal, who takes part in the action of
a story or other literary work. Most of the time fiction, like short story, interests reader
because of the interesting and significant events that it narrates, but it also interest reader
because of the character that is portrays. Characters in a short story may be classified in
different ways.

A. According to their role and importance in the story

 The main characters are primarily responsible for the major actions in the story, while
the rests are secondary characters. The story focuses on one of the main characters
wherein the events are primarily connected to his or her situation. The story revolves
around this person who is also called the central or leading character.
 In old narratives, the central character is usually called hero and the exact opposite is
the villain, the character who oppose him or her invested with negative attribute.
 Nowadays, they are popularly called the protagonist (hero) and the antagonists
(villain)
 
B. According to the complexity of their Characterization
Flat characters are simple and one-dimensional. They present single dominant trait or
characteristic and they remain essentially unchanged throughout the story. In contrast,
round characters are complex and multidimensional. They exhibit a number of traits which
may be conflicting. Because if their complicated personality, round characters cannot be
easily pigeonholed

3. Setting

This is the milieu, the location, and the time of the story. It is used as a way of
increasing credibility. The writer provides details about the setting for the reader to shape
into complete picture.

4. Theme

It is an underlying idea that comments on human condition; a truth in life which is in

the heart is in the heart of the story.

The theme is usually implied rather than stated. Two of the recurring themes in short
stories are:

A. Good vs. Evil – personal evil or dark forces in man’s environment such as disease, poverty,
war, alteration, loss, oppression, dehumanization, inherent evil of man.

B. Life Process

a. childhood joys and fears

b. growing up pains of adolescents

c. adult’s maturation process

d. waste and tragedy of old age

e. cycles of life and death

f. change

5. Point of View

This is the narrator of the story. It can be classified into three:

A. First Person – The narrator is the character who tells the story from his/her own
observation.

B. First Person-Observer – This is when a character tells in the first person a story
he/she has observed.

C. Author-Observer – This is when the author relates what happens in an objective

manner without giving his/her own comments and without explaining what goes on
in the mind of the character.

D. Omniscient – The narrator is all present. He knows what is going on in the mind of
the characters, and he comments on it.

6. Symbol

This is a concrete object, event or character in the story which represent an abstract
idea like love, patriotism, and others. The meaning of a symbols is revealed through the
context of the story.

7. Conflict
 Conflict in a short story could be the following man vs. man; man vs. society; man vs.
himself; man vs. nature.

III. ACTIVITY

Read the short story of Guy De Maupassant “The Necklace” and identify the following.

A. Plot

B. Character

1. According to their role and importance in the story

2. According to the complexity of their characterization

C. Setting

D. Point of View

E. Who is Guy De Maupassant?

F. Background of the short story