2 Key Elements of Literature

1. Character
Persons in a work of fiction
a. Protagonist – central character
Where the story involves
b. Antagonist – character in opposition to the main character
2. Theme
a. Central, underlying and controlling idea or insight of a work of literature
b. Idea the writer wishes to convey about the subject
c. Writers view of the world or a revelation about human nature

Examples of themes:
Theme of table – moral
Theme of parable – teaching
Theme of fiction – view about life and how people behave; theme can be
extracted from the characters, actions and setting

How to uncover the theme:

a. Check out the title. Identify the subject.
b. Notice any repeating patterns and symbols.
c. Identify the insight or truth that was learned about the subject.
d. Check if the theme is supported by the detail: characters, plot, setting,
conflict, tone

3. Plot
Causal sequence of events, the “why” for the things that happen in the story.

4. Point of view
Vantage point from which the story is narrated
a. First person – Main character is the narrator
b. Third person (unlimited) – Omniscient Narrator who know everything
about all the characters
c. Third person (limited) – narrator’s knowledge is limited to one character
d. Objective – writer tells what happens without stating more than can be
inferred from the story’s action and dialogue

5. Setting
Place, time, social/weather conditions, mood
6. Conflict
Tension between opposing forces of the story
7. Tone
Emotional coloring or meaning of the literary work
2 Some literary forms for LET

1. Verse
a. Lyric
1) Sonnet – 14 – line poem dealing with feelings
2) Ode – Addresses a person, places, or thing
3) Psalm – praise God
4) Elegy – poem of the dead
5) Awit – 12 syllables per line, like Florante at Laura
6) Corrido – 8 syllables, like Ibong Adarna
7) Falk songs – awiting bayan

b. Narrative
1) Epic – About heroic exploits
Biag ni Lam-ang
Beowulf (England)
Lliad and Odyssey (Greece)
2) Ballad – Short poem meant to be sung, simple plot, metrical
structure
3) Tales – stories about supernatural being

c. Drama, Comedy
1) Tragedy – play dealing with tragic events with an unhappy ending
for the main character Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Julius Caesar
2) Farce – Exaggerated comedy
3) Melodrama – Characterized by extravagant action and emotion;
dominantly sad but with happy ending

2. Prose
a. Novel
Narrative divided into chapters
b. Short Story
Narrative shorter than novel
c. Legend
Nonhistorical or unverifiable story handed down tradition and popular
accepted as historical
d. Anecdote
Short story usually serving to make the listeners laugh or ponder over a
topic
e. Play
Consists a dialogues between characters, intended for theatrical
performance
f. Essay
With coherent set of ideas on a particular subject
g. Biography
Detailed description of a person’s life
h. Fable
Features animals, legendary creatures, or objects given human qualities
Drill 19 Philippine Literature

1. What figure of speech pervades in the excerpt below from “Be Beautiful. Noble,
like the Antique Ant” by Jose Garcia Villa ?

Be beautiful; noble, like the antique ant,

Who bore the storms as he bore the sun,
Wearing neither gown nor helmet,
Though he was archbishop and soldier:
Wore only his own flesh

A. Simile
B. Metaphor
C. Personification
D. Hyperbole

2. Which sentence best expresses the idea of the lines below from “Inside Job” by
Edith Tiempo?

To say “Look what life has done” is wrong, people and things are seldom Done
to. They mostly do.
A. Life is what we make it
B. Life is too short to be wasted.
C. People must be responsible for others.
D. People seldom do things right.

3. Who is persona on the things below?

Orphaned by distances but filial to photograph postmarked “overseas”,

Thus did I began
My well kept boyhood
In a tidy house, a cozy house.
“Poems for my father” – Fedirico Licsi Espino
A. An OFW’s son
B. An orphaned child
C. A photographer’s daughter
D. A young housekeeper

4. What point of view is employed in the narrative excerpt below from “The Virgin”
– Kerima Polotan Tuvera?

Miss Mijares was quite sure she had boarded the right jeepney but the driver,
hoping to beat the traffic had detoured down a side alley, and then seeing he
was low in gas, he took still another shortcut to a filling station, After that, he
rode through alien country.
A. First person
B. Third person limited
C. Third person omniscient
D. Second person
5. What Philippine Literary period is used as a context of the story “May Day Eve”
by Nick Joaquin.

The old people had orders that the dancing should stop at 10 o’clock but it was
almost midnight before the carriages came lining up to the front door, the
servants running to and fro with torches to light the departing guests, while the
girls who were staying were promptly herded upstairs in the bedroom….
A. American period
B. Japanese occupation
C. Spanish period
D. Martial law

6. Filipino American Carlos Bulosan left the Philippines in 1930 in the hope of
finding salvation from the economic depression of his homeland. Which of the
following is his celebrated autobiography?
A. Falling Leaves
B. The Laughter of my father
C. America is in the heart
D. Footnote to youth

7. The famous work of Francisco Balagtas, “Florante at Laura”, wich has twelve
sullables in each line, is called ____________.
A. A corridor
B. An awit
C. A haiku
D. A epilogue

8. In Gemino Abad’s short story, “ A Question of Fedility”, what figure of speech

was used in the underline txt below?

“A simple denial was best, for explanations are like clouds, forming forming and
dispersing, the words failing short, or worse, aghast to spell out the heart’s
agenda, embarrassed with its yearning items. There are simply no clear skies in
human affairs, and so, how could he even begin to explain to Bianca ?
A. Metaphor
B. Personification
C. Simile
D. Metonymy

9. Angela manalang Gloria, one of the first generation of Filipino poets to write in
English, wrote the following entitled “Poem”. Do you think that the poem that
she was describing have already been published?

There are so many poems in my bed,

All wanting to be seen,
And some are bright in silver lace,
And some are plumed with green…

But all of them, however perfect

 In my mind’s retreat,
Appear bewildered when released,
And oh so incomplete.
A. No.
B. Maybe.
C. Yes.
D. Not enough lines to ascertain.

10. What figure of speech is used in the following excerpt from Nick Joaquin’s
“Reportage of Lovers: A Medley of Factual Romances, Happy or Tragical, Most of
Which Made News?”

“Love should have no alternatives; love should be the sole reason for loving; love
should spring of itself.”
A. Alliteration
B. Assonance
C. Anaphora
D. Apostrophe

Drill 20 World Literature

1. Which of the BEST restates the meaning of “The child is the father of the man.”
A. The experience and lessons of childhood influence one’s adult life.
B. If there were no children, there could be no fathers.
C. Children are naturally wiser than adults.
D. Fathers are dependent on the sights of their children
2. Which among the lines below has the same meaning as this statement:

“ Our Commitments can develop us or can destroy us, but either way, they will
define us.”

A. Flexible commitments are what we need today.

B. We must make full commitment to worldly goals.
C. Our lives are shaped by what we are committed to.
D. Our commitments need not be planned way ahead.

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it
is made up of our thought. If man speaks of acts with an evil thought, pain follows
him, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage.” –Bhagavad Gita
3. What lesson can one learn from the passage?
A. We must have right thoughts.
B. We must think carefully.
C. We must be working just like the ox.
D. We must be change for the better.

4. “ On the street of this position of God’s world I feel neighbor to a rat, brother of
a worm; forever chasing rainbows at muddy margins.

This line on Quemada’s poem in saying that:

A. Life is fruitful
B. Life is not worth living
C. Life is empty and meaningless
D. Life is full of challenges

5. “life is but a walking shadow, a pun player that struts and frets… And I heard
no more.” in the above line, life is portrayed as:
A. Passing
B. Goes by stages
C. Eternal
D. Has its end

6. What emotion is expressed in the lines:

“ Thou art fairer than the evening air clad in the beauty of a thousand
stars!”
A. Envy
B. Gratitude
C. Optimism
D. Admiration

7. Nothing that happens in this world ever happens by chance ; it is all part of a
grand design. “ this line is about a person’s______.
A. Dream
B. Destiny
C. Luck
D. Ambition
 8. What does William Norris what to do in his Zip the Lip?

If your lips would keep from slips,

Five things observe with care:
To whom you speak; of whom you speak; and how, when and where.
A. To be truthful
B. To be sincere
C. To shoe kindness
D. To observe confidentiality

9. What does the package below emply?

Life, so they say it just a game

And they let it slip away
Don’t let life slip away
Grasp it while you can
We may never pass this way again.

A. Grab the opportunity if it comes

B. There is still a second life
C. In a second, life will be gone
D. We will all die

10. Consider the poem “Wings” by Victor Hugo. What advice that he give?
Be like the bird, who halting in his flight
On limb too slight
Feels it give way beneath him,
Yet sings
Knowing he hath wings.
A. Listen to advice
B. Believe in yourself
C. Be courageous
D. Don’t be over confident

11-13. Read the following passage by Alfred Lord Tennyson and answer the questions
below.
Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O sea!
But the tender grace of a day is dead
Will never come back to me.
11.The dominant rhetorical device used by the poet is______.
A. Apostrophe
B. Anaphora
C. Assonance
D. Alliteration

12. The mood of the poem is one of

A. Bitterness and anger
B. Happiness and angerness
C. Nostalgia and emptiness

13. What do lines 3 and 4 mean?

A. One should forget the past.
B. One cannot hold back time.
C. One should live in the present.
D. One should look toward the future.

14. Which virtue does George Eliot want to impart in this lines?

Oh , the comfort, the expressible comfort of feeling safe with a person;

having neither to weigh thoughts nor to Measure words but to pour them
all out, just at it is, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful
hand will take and sift them, keeping what is worth keeping, and then
With the breath of kindness , blow the rest away.
A. Cooperation
B. Humility
C. Acceptance
D. Confidentiality

15.What key lesson in life does Emily Dickinson’s poem teaches us ?

If I can start one heart from breaking,

I shall not leave in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not leave in vain.
A. Friendliness
B. Confidentiality
C. Encouragement
D. Kindness
16. What virtue is inferred in the poem below?

It’s the little things we do or say

That make or break the beauty of the
Average passing day.
Heart, like doors, will open with ease
To very little keys,
And don’t forget that two of these
Are “I thank you “ and “if you please”.

A. Friendliness
B. Confidentiality
C. Encouragement
D. Kindness

17. What do the following lines from William Blake Exhort?

To see a world in a grain of sand,

And heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And enternity in an hour.

18. Which statement is true and based on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 118?

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

A. Love dissipates when lovers live apart.

B. Love adapts to changing circumstances.
C. Love never wanes even in old age.
D. Love grows even to the edge of doom

19.What do the following lines from Wordsworth’s Psalm of Life reveal about
heroes and heroism?

Live s of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime
And departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time

A. Anybody can be a hero.

 B. Heroes are often forgotten.
C. Heroes are easy to find.
D. It is easy to do heroic ats.

20. “While a cold hand snatched you away like a kite – I should have come home.”
A. Sadness
B. Loss
C. Regret
D. Love
21.“ you see the things that are and you ask why but I dream that never were and
ask why not.”This quotation by George Bernard. Shaw simply reflects his :
A. Clear thinking
B. Immortality
C. Curiosity
D. Rich imagination
22. “the man without a purpose is like a ship without a rubber …
Thomas Carlyle. From this line , we can infer that:

A. There should be sufficient energy in one’s life.

B. Directions can never come into one’s life,
C. One’s life doesn’t need to be controlled,
D. There is a strong driving force in one’s life.

23-25. Read the poem below and answer the succeeding three questions.
SEASON OF LOVE
I. Love was spring
When feeling bloomed
As we first said hello
And look into each other’s eye together

V. Love become summer

When passions rose cold
As we held hands
And said our vows

IX. Love turn into autumn

When we fell apart
As things went sour
And we just can’t stay
 XIII. Love change to winter
When the nights grew
As we traveled life’s road
Without each other

23. “Spring “ in the first stanza represents all but one of the following ________.
A. A budding relationship
B. The beginning of love
C. Colorful world of people in love
D. The end of bachelorhood

24. The word “summer” in the second stanza suggests___________.

A. Hot environment
B. Mixed feelings
C. Vacation from high school
D. Heightened emotions
25. “Autumn” in the third stanza may mean all of the following EXCEPT _______.
A. Irreconcilable differences, waning of feelings
B. Problem faced by lovers
C. Falling out of love
D. Death of the love

26-28. Read the excerpts of the poem “If” written by Rudyard Kipling and answer the
questions below.

If you can keep your head when all about you

And losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;

If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same,
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools;
 If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings,

And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the will which says to them: “Hold On!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And --- which is more --- you’ll be a Man, my son!

26. What does this mean? “if you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue.”
A. Don’t share your opinion with others who might disagree.
B. Make sure you are loyal
C. Keep your moral even if others try to influence you.
D. Listen to what other say.

27.What does the author think of Triumph and Disaster?

A. They are the same
B. Neither matters.
C. You can’t have one without the other.
D. Listen to what other say.

28.What sentence best sums up the overall message of this poem?

A. It is easier to think the wrong path.
B. Make good choices and your life will be wrong.
C. You will not be a man if you make a bad choices.
D. Life is full of challenges.

29.Shakespeare said: Love is blind and lovers cannot see; the pretty follies that
they themselves commit. What do the underlined words mean?
A. Careless acts
B. Flowery words
 C. Nonsense words
D. Awesome acts
30.In the Psalm of David, what is meant by the line below;
He maketh me lie down in green pastures;
He leadeth me beside the still waters

A. He will always be provided with peace and prosperity

B. He will be rich and famous
C. He will be the leader of the land
D. He needs to find time for resta