Rizal Reviewer

Noli Me Tangere
 Most important written outputs by the national hero
 Rizal mustered his academic acumens as he tapped his knowledge of
various fields
 The realities of nineteenth century colonial life in the Philippines
 Many appreciates for its narrative that takes the readers

Publication of the Noli

 Rizal participated in the movements of the ilustrados to utilize propaganda

to campaign for reforms in the Philippines.
 Released various written outputs from new bits, to features articles,
commentaries.
 Rizal’s exemplary mastery of words was clearly in one of his most
celebrated works, his first novel.
 Meeting in ilustrados in 1887, he proposed to write a book project to be
done collaboratively with his fellow writers.
 He eventually decided to write a novel on his own.
 He started work on the project in 1884 and completed it in 1887.
 Spoliarium is one of rizal biographers citation, which depicted the suffering
faced by humanity in the face of inequalities
 Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe that dealt with
slavery in America.
 Finish haft of the novel in spain, supposedly the other haft in france, then
complete the draft in 1886.
 The novel publish in following year in Germany.
 Maximo Viola, insisted on leading him 300 pesos for the printing of the first
2,000 copies.
  1887, Rizal was already sending out copies of the Noli to his friends and
the book began to take flight.

Motivations behind Writing the Noli

 Biblical reference to the gospel of john in which Jesus appeared to Mary

Magdalene and uttered these words.
 He intended to write the themes that were taboo in the Philippines for
centuries; things that people dared not touch.
 Rizal first planned to write his novel in France, considered to be the
language of the intellectuals in Europe at that time.
 Shifted to Spanish because he intended to reach out to his countrymen in
the Philippines.
 Exposing the ills of the Philippines colonial society under Spain

Noli Continuing Relevance

 Noli’s legacy and continuing relevance will be explained as a text not only
in the field of literature but also in the areas of history and social sciences.

Noli after its first Publication

 Noli being considered by many as a landmark piece of literature
 Resil Mojares naming Rizal as the father of the Filipino novel
 The theme revolved around societal issues experienced in the Philippines
under the Spanish colonial rule
 Noli generated reactions from readers, Filipinos and foreigners alike
 Responses ranged from praise to outright ridicule
 Fray Salvador Font, chair of the censorship commission, outlawed
assessed and judged the book as pernicious
 They enjoined devout catholics not to read the novel to avoid commiting
capital sins.
  Vicente Barrantes who wrote several articles in Spanish newspaper
ridiculing Rizal a “man of contradictions”
 His colleagues in the Propaganda Movement praised his novel.
 Marcelo H. del Pilar who even wrote essays in response to critics of Noli.
 Ferdinand Bluemintritt, also an academic, also expressed support for the
novel.
 The novel continued to be a subject of debate and discussion
 Noli was translated into several languages, France was the earliest
translations of the novel
 Many posit that there were early attempts to translate the novel into
German (by Bluementritt) and even Tagalog (by Rizal’s brother Paciano)
 The most circulated translation and editions of the novel was the English
translation of Charles Derbyshire.
 By the 1930s, Rizal Noli had severa; Spanish editions, translation into
English, French, Japanese, and also into several languages in the
Philippines including Tagalog, Cebuano, Waray, Iloko, and Bikol
 Testa-De Ocampo points out, as much as the novel is elevated in the
highest echelons of the Philippines literary history, seldom do we find
Filipinos reading it in the original Spanish.

Noli and the Study of a Colonial Society

 Sociologist Syed Fareed Alatas even went as far as describing Rizal as

“probably the first systematic social thinker in southeast Asia”
 Important contribution to the understanding of colonial society and of the
working of the Spanish empire in the Philippines
 The novel portrayed the lives of the characters of diverse positions from
which people in nineteenth century Phillippines thought and acted in
relation to others.
 Noli as Rizal’s diagnosis of the ills of colonial society as he assessed the
role played by the church, the state, and the people.
 Rizal highlighted some of his ideas on how Philippine society could be
emancipated from the bondage of colonial rule
 He underscored the importance of education as a powerful tool and
constraints wrought by the colonial condition no only on foreigners, but
also on some misguided Filipinos that contributed to the ills of society
 He also emphasized the good qualities of the Filipinos, which needed to be
harnessed in order to succeed in the struggle for emancipation.