CHAPTER II: POPULAR LITERATURE

Introduction

Popular literature contains writings that are intended for the masses and those that find favor with large
audiences. In this chapter, the students must acquaint themselves with the nature, appeal and social functions of
popular literature. It will also talk about the characteristics and the different issues and challenges of popular
literature.

LESSON 5: Introduction to Popular Literature

Objectives:

At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:

a. Acquaint themselves with the nature, appeal, and social functions of popular literature.

UNDERSTANDING THE NATURE, FUNCTION, AND VALUE OF LITERATURE

HOW DR. ELLIS DESCRIBES ‘LITERATURE’

□ Dr. Rod Ellis- known as the “Father of Second Language Acquisition” (ASL) (1989:30) defines literature as:
1. The verbal expression of human imagination and
2. One of the primary means by which a culture transmits itself.

I. NATURE

WHAT IS THE NATURE OF LITERATURE?

□ Literature can be defined as an expression of human feelings, thoughts, and ideas whose medium is language, oral
and written.
□ It is not only about human ideas, thoughts, and feelings but also about experiences of the authors.
□ It can be medium for human to communicate what they feel, think, experience to the readers.

‘LITERATURE’ BASED ON DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEWS

□ Literature is art,
□ Literature is language,
□ Literature is aesthetic,
□ Literature is fictional,
□ Literature is expressive, and
□ Literature is affective.
□ Literature is everything in print.
□ It means any writing can be categorized as literature.

LITERATURE AS ART FORM

1. IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE
□ Is highly ‘connotative’ which means words that used in literary works have feeling and shades of meaning
that words tend to evoke.
□ Imaginative literature or “literature of power” includes poems, short stories, novels, and plays. It interprets
human experience by presenting actual truths about particular events.

2. NON-IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE
□ Means that the words refer to meaning in dictionary.
□ Non-Fictional Literature or “literature of knowledge” includes biographies, and essays which presents actual
facts, events, experiences and ideas.
TWO CATEGORIES OF LITERATURE ACCORDING TO KLEDEN

□ Kleden (2004:7-8) states that literature can be differentiate based on the kind of meanings that exist in a text.

A. LITERARY TEXT consists of textual meaning and referential meaning and;

B. NON-LITERARY TEXT only consists of referral meaning.

The TEXTUAL MEANING is the meaning that is produced by the relationship of text itself.

REFERENTIAL MEANING it is produced by the relationship between internal text and external text (world beyond the
text).

LITERATURE DIFFER FROM ORDIANRY SPOKEN OR WRITTEN LANGUAGE

□ Literature uses special words, structures, and characteristics. Primarily the language of literature differs from
ordinary language in three ways:
1.) Language is concentrated and meaningful.
2.) Its purpose is not simply to explain, argue, or make a point but rather to give a sense of pleasure in the
discovery of new experience, and
3.) It demands intense concentration from the readers. It indicates that the language of literature has
originality, quality, creativity, and pleasure.

LITERARY FROM THE USE OF LANGUAGE AND THE EXISTENCE

□ From the use of language and the existence of meaning in literary works, it can be concluded that poetry, prose
and drama are put in literary works article, journalism, news, bibliography, memoir, and so on can be categorized as
non-literary works.

II. APPEAL

 Something that makes the viewers or readers attracted and interested in the literary piece.

III. SOCIAL FUNCTION

FUNCTION OF LITERATURE ENTERTAINMENT FUNCTION

Known as, “pleasure reading”. In this function, literature is used to entertain its readers. It is consumed for the
sake of one’s enjoyment.

1.) SOCIAL AND POLITICAL FUNCTION

Literature shows how society works around them. It helps the reader “see” the social and political constructs
around him and shows the state of the people and the world around him.

2.) IDEOLOGICAL FUNCTION

Ideological function shapes our way of thinking based on the ideas of other people. Literature also displays a
person’s ideology placed in the text consciously and unconsciously.

3.) MORAL FUNCTION

Literature may impart moral values to its readers. The morals contained in a literary text, whether good or bad
are absorbed by whoever reads it, thus helps in shaping their personality.

4.) LINGUISTIC FUNCTION

Literature preserves the language of every civilization from where it originated. They are also evidences that a
certain civilization has existed by recording the language and preserving it through wide spans of time.

5.) CULTURAL FUNCTION

Literature orients us to the traditions, folklore and the arts of our ethnic group’s heritage. It preserves entire
cultures and creates an imprint of the people’s way of living for others to read, hear and learn.
6.) EDUCATIONAL FUNCTION

Literature teaches us of many things about the human experience. It is used to portray the facets of life that
we see, and those that we would never dream of seeing. Literature therefore, is a conduct for the chance to
experience and feel things where we can learn things about life.

7.) HISTORICAL FUNCTION

Ancient texts, illuminated scripts, stone tablets etc. keeps a record of events that happened in the place where
they originated. Thus, they serve as time capsules of letters that are studies by scholars and researchers of today.

IMPORTANCE OF LITERATURE
□ It entertains you and provides useful occupation in your free time.
□ It makes you a wiser and more experienced person by forcing you to judge, sympathize with, or criticize the
characters you read about.
□ Literature improves your command of language.
□ It teaches you about the life, cultures and experiences of people in other parts of the world.
□ It gives you information about other parts of the world which you may never be able to visit in your lifetime.
□ It helps you compare your own experiences with the experiences of other people.
□ It gives information which may be useful in other subjects, for example, in Geography, Science, History,
Social Studies and so on.

IMPORTANCE OF LITERARY CRITICISM

□ As a tool in literary studies, critic plays an important role in doing studies or analysis about literary work.
□ Applying criticism make our focus on certain aspect or element of literary work sharper than reading as
usual.
□ The reader can focus on an aspect as his interest toward the literary work.

UNIVERSAL CHARACTERISTIC OF LITERATURE

1. Timelessness
2. Eternity
3. Universality
4. Permanence

LITERATURE is a permanent expression in words of some thought or feelings or idea about life and the world.

LITERARY CRITICISM AND ITS PURPOSE

□ Literary criticism refers to analysis and judgment of works of literature.
□ It tries to interpret specific works of literature, and also helps to identify and understand different ways of
examining and interpreting them.
□ Study of literary criticism contributes to maintenance of high standards of literature.
□ It is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature.
□ Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of
literature’s goals and methods.

FUNCTIONS OF LITERARY CRITICISM

□ The modern understanding of criticism is regarded as having two different functions which helps to achieve
the main purposes of criticism.
□ Criticism is the process of analysis and description and interpretation of literary works for the purpose of
increasing understanding and raising appreciation.

HOW DO YOU DO LITERARY CRITICISM?

□ Method to Applying Advanced Critical Techniques
□ Read the work of literature critically.
□ Evaluate as you read.
□ Brainstorm which aspect to write about.
 □ Formulate a thesis statement.
□ Create an outline.
□ Select quotes and patterns that support your thesis.
□ Find other criticism to support your thesis.

TYPES OF LITERARY CRITICISM

□ Such analysis may be based from a variety of critical approaches or movements, such as:

1. Archetypal Criticism 6. New Criticism (Formalist/Structuralism)

2. Cultural Criticism 7. New Historicism
3. Feminist Criticism 8. Post-Structuralism, and
4. Psychoanalytic Criticism 9. Reader-response Criticism
5. Marxist Criticism

ARCHETYPAL CRITICISM is a critical theory that interprets a text by focusing on symbols, images, and character types
in literary works that is used to discuss in plot, character or situation. It recognizes conscious and unconscious
symbols that relates to emotions, values, feelings to specific images. It encourages the readers to examine basic
beliefs, fear, and anxieties.

CULTURAL CRITICISM focuses on the elements of culture and how they affect one’s perceptions and understanding
of texts.

FOUR ASSUMPTIONS:

1. Ethnicity, religious beliefs, social class, etc. are crucial components in formulating plausible interpretation of
text.
2. While the emphasis is on diversity of approach and subject matter, Cultural Criticism is not the only means of
understanding ourselves and our art.
3. An examination or exploration of the relationship between dominant cultures and the dominated is
essential.
4. When looking at a text through the perspective of marginalized peoples, new understandings emerge.

FEMINIST CRITICISM is a product of the feminist movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s. It is the representation
of women in literature as an expression of the social norms about women and their social roles and as a means of
socialization. It focused on the images of the women in books by male writers to expose the patriarchal ideology and
how women characters are portrayed.

PSYCHOANALYTIC CRITICISM based on Sigmund Freud ID, ego and superego, the author’s own childhood
effects the book and character. It is a type of criticism that uses theories of psychology to analyze literature. It
focuses on the author’s state of mind or the state of the mind of fictional character. Psychoanalytic criticism uses
two different approaches; psychoanalysis of the author and psychoanalysis of the character.

MARXIST CRITICISM applies political science and economics to the study of literature. Grew out of writings of
Karl Marx, who was highly critical of the capitalist system of economics and politics. It concerned with the issues of
class conflict and materialism, wealth, work, and the various ideologies that surrounds these things. It connotes
higher class do control arts, literatures, and ideologies.

Marxism As Compared to Feminist and New Historicism

Like feminist critics, it investigates how literature can work as a force for social change or as a reaffirmation of
existing conditions.

Like New Historicism, it examines how history influences literature; the difference is that Marxism focuses on the
lower class.
How to do Marxist Reading

1. Look for examples of oppression, bad working conditions, class struggles and other related issues.
2. Search for the “covert” meaning underneath the “overt” which is about class struggles, historical stages, and
economic conditions.
3. Relate the context of a work to the social-class status of the author.
4. Relate the literary work to the social conditions of its time period.
5. Explain an entire genre in terms of its social period.
6. Show how literature is shaped by political, economic, labor, and class conditions.

NEW CRITICISM (FORMALISM/STRUCTURALISM)

NEW CRITICISM was a formalist movement in literary theory that dominated in American literary criticism in the
middle decades of the 20th century which emphasized close reading particularly of poetry, to discover how a work of
literature functioned as a self-contained, self-referential aesthetic object.

FORMALISM refers to critical approaches that analyze, interpret, or evaluate the inherent features of a text. These
features include not only the grammar and syntax but also literary devices such as a meter and figures of speech. It
reduces the importance of a text’s historical biographical and cultural context.

NEW HISTORICISM was first developed in 1980 by the American critic Stephen Greenbelts. It is based on the idea
that literature should be studied and interpreted within a wide context examining both how the author’s time, in
turn recognizing that current cultural contexts color that critic’s conclusion.

POST-STRUCTURALISM offers a way of studying how knowledge is produced and critiques structuralism premise. It
rejects the idea of a literary text having a single purpose, a single meaning, or one singular existence. It argues to
understand an object (e.g. a text), it is necessary to study both the object itself and the systems of knowledge that
produced the object.

POST-STRUCTURALISTIC CRITIC must be able to utilize a variety of perspectives to create a multifaceted

interpretation of a text, even if these interpretations conflict with one another.

It is particularly important to analyze how the meanings of a text shift in relation to certain variables, usually the
identity of the reader.

READER-RESPONSE CRITICISM (RR) critic believes that a reader’s interaction with the text give its meaning. The text
cannot exist without the reader. It focuses on the reader or audience and the experience of a literary work rather
than the author or the context and form of work. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear, does it
make a noise? If a text sits on the shelf in a bookstore and no one is around to read it, does the text have meaning?

ROLE OF THE READER RESPONSE CRITICISM

The role of the reader is pivotal in the understanding of literature – they can use a psychoanalytical, structural,
feminist, etc. approach to formulate their criticism (anything goes).

Readers are active in the reading process. They cannot read literature passively but must react and therefore bring
meaning to the text.