Lesson 2
Lesson 2
l. Review and analyze the essay and answer the following questions.
1. How did the author describe the Filipino short story writers in English? (150-200
words)
Jose Y. Dalisay used and backed up the views of the scholar and anthologist
Leopoldo Y. Yabes that Filipino short story writers in English were getting better.
Dalisay mentioned some authors who moved him as heavily impressionistic
meditations, melodramatic in their own way, plaintive, not without charm or humor,
but often culturally disembodied such as Erwin E. Castillo, Wilfredo Nolledo, Wilfredo
Sanchez, Cesar Ruiz Aquino, Alfred A. Yuson, and Jose Ayala.
A new generation of Filipino short story writers was also mentioned, and he
thought that they were just waiting for their first few stories to be published. Dalisay
emphasized that the rise of these writers, their explosive talent, and their incredible
variety of subjects and styles will be remembered in Philippine literary history as
occurring in the 1980s and early 1990s. The new generation of writers may collectively
struggle to figure out what they are all about, he pointed out. His primary insight is that
writers of the new generation use English unapologetically. Additionally, well-known
foreign authors served as inspiration for Filipino English short story writers. The Filipino
writers in English have been relatively free to boldly and carefreely go where almost no
one else will bother going, he continued at the conclusion of his essay.
2. How did the author characterize the Filipino short story in English? (150-200 words)
The author believes that the short story in English has demonstrated a renewed
and evidently indestructible strength by becoming more Filipino and less English. Jose
Dalisay made clear distinctions between various Filipino short stories written in English
by authors like Francisco Arcellana and Leopoldo Y. Yabes. Dalisay demonstrated the
evolution of narratives from love tales to those that address social issues. He pointed
out some stories and prose by Gregorio C. Brilliantes, Gilda Cordero-Fernando, and
Kerima Polotan that survey the social landscape with wit, irony, a sense of things
passing and things lost, and material depth as well as surface and luminosity.
His core observations about the modern Filipino short story in English led him to
conclude that a completely new group of authors and writers served as the form's
sources of inspiration. The content of the new stories focuses mainly on the variety of
our experience as it develops. Dalisay also referred to the approach as an electric lot.
Additionally, Dalisay concluded that composing and reading Filipino short stories in
English remain elitist and middle-class actions that are only appreciated by few Filipinos
because very few of the middle-class Filipinos whose troubles serve as the basis for our
fiction genuinely want to read about themselves.
COMPREHENSION CHECK
l. THE WRITERS AND THEIR WORKS. Identify at least twenty (20) Filipino short story writers
mentioned in the essay and give example/s of their short stories. Examples have been provided.
1925
First acknowledged classic entitled “Dead
Stars” by Paz Marquez Benitez 1927
Stealer of Hearts by Jose Villa Panagniban. The
1933 first single author collection of Filipino Short
Footnote to Youth by Jose Garcia Villa. The Stories in English.
second single author collection of Filipino
Short Stories in English. 1930’s and 1940’s
The Sunday Tribune Magazine, a locally written
1940 story or poem by an American or British author.
Commonwealth literary contest was
announced
1940’s and 1950’s
Dalisay stated that Yabes noted a certain
1962 broadening of vision occasioned by the
Some stories and writers were introduced overwhelming realities.
and remain forever green in PEN Anthology.
1965
The Ateneo-based Philippine Studies came out
1985
with a special issue devoted to new writing in
Dominated by political concerns
English.
New Generation
The rise of Filipino short story writers in English.