Culminating the World Literature course

         Our course is Literatures of the World. Apparently, we were expecting to read the works of Rabindranath Tagore, Edgar Allan Poe, Hans Christian Andersen and more representative literatures from Filipino authors. On the other hand, we were given this rare moviegoer chance to watch films based on literature books like Les Miserables, Odyssey, and King Arthur. It was an awesome experience to effortlessly understand the stories without having to read a 500-page book. However, it is always of more advantage to have read the book first before you watch its film version. It is because the big screen version usually deviates from the original story. What you savor in the film is the artistic interpretation of the scriptwriter, not of the original author. For example, in the original Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, the hero Jean Valjean has escaped prison several times. In the film written by Rafael Yglesias, Valjean escaped from parole once and he is transformed into a good man. In the movie Odyssey, Odysseus was given two options in crossing the territory of Scylla and Charybdis. In the film, it seems that Odysseus didn’t know they have to get past the monster Scylla and the deadly whirlpool Charybdis. All of his men got killed and he was left alone, brought by the waves to the island of Calypso. These are the examples of the deviations of the movies based on literature books.

          Since our course is literature, it is expected that we will be familiarized of its two main divisions namely, poetry and prose. Prose is the most artistic type and it is our favorite since we don’t have to deal with difficult imagery and symbols used in poetry. Novels give us the chance to have a page-turning experience reading them. Drama also provides us with an exhilarating experience especially because it is intended to be performed on stage. Just because we dealt with these forms of literature, we were tasked to culminate our learning in a one-day activity. The activity involved presentations of drama, oration, storytelling, character impersonation, verse choir, and choral singing. Our group did the choral singing category. We were having a hard time thinking where does choral singing belong to in literature. But since we are going to sing, we presume our category belongs to poetry since a song is a form of Lyric Poetry. The hardest part is, we have to perform it on stage and we are not real good singers! Our group selected the provincial theme song “Antique Banwa nga Hamili” as our piece because we are all familiar of it. In the first place, we don’t have a trainer to teach us how to sing it properly in chorus. Our success in the presentation is dependent upon ourselves. We started practicing our piece two weeks before the culmination. It wasn’t a rigid practice but more of a happy-go-lucky assignment we just need to get past until it’s done. Unlike other groups, we didn’t stay overnight just practicing. We trained ourselves anytime we are free and convenient. In other words, we didn’t give it our full preparation. It’s just fair that we didn’t hit the top spot in this category. Actually, we didn’t plan much about everything like our costume. On the day of the presentation, we even admitted two neophyte “singers” who weren’t with us since the first and the last day of our practice. We didn’t work hard for it so we didn’t expect to win. But then the most important thing is that we know it is not a competition. It was not the other groups that we had competed but it is ourselves. Our greatest foe in this arena is our own ability. It was fun and we cherish this memorable experience; and we give it a good riddance as we face our next endeavors.