CONTINUING RELEVANCE OF

NOLI ME TANGERE
Lesson 10
OBJECTIVES:

▪At the end of this section, you should be able to:

▪1. Discuss the social issues presented in the Noli
Me Tangere;
▪2. Explain the relevance of the novel at present;
and
▪3. Show social awareness to the issues in the
society through a critical thinking activity.
▪ Many people regard Noli Me Tangere to be a seminal work of literature
today.
▪ Resil Mojares, a scholar, called Rizal the “Father of the Filipino Novel” in
his chronicle of the Philippines’ literary history (Testa-De Ocampo, 2011).
▪ As discussed in the previous chapter, the novel’s topics centered around
societal issues experienced in the Philippines under Spanish colonial
authority.
▪ As a result, the novel did not go unnoticed, and it became a topic of dispute.
▪The Noli elicited comments from readers, both Filipinos, and
foreigners, in the months and years after its publication in 1887.
▪The reactions varied from adoration to harsh mockery.
▪The Spanish clergy and several Spanish colonial officials were
among those who despised the work.
▪As a result, it’s natural that Spanish friars passionately opposed
the novel’s circulation in 1887, when the chair of the censorship
panel, Fray Salvador Font, barred the reading and ownership of
Rizal’s novel.
▪ Many other friars viewed the book as poisonous and evaluated it as such.
▪ To avoid committing capital sins, they advised devoted Catholics not to read
the work.
▪ In the Philippines and Spain, critiques of the work from Spanish authorities
and academics circulated.
▪ Vicente Barrantes, a Spanish scholar, was a vocal opponent of the work,
writing multiple articles in Spanish newspapers mocking Rizal as a “man of
contradictions.”
▪ Barrantes lamented that Rizal’s scathing of the friars and Spaniards reflected
the author and revealed more about Filipinos.
▪Rizal’s novel had enthusiastic advocates among his
colleagues, as well as criticism from all sectors.
▪Many of his Propaganda Movement comrades admired
his novel.
▪Marcelo H. del Pilar, for example, produced writings in
reaction to the Noli’s opponents.
▪Ferdinand Blumentritt, a fellow academic and friend of
Rizal, also expressed support for the novel.
▪ The novel Noli sparked controversy in social circles in the nineteenthcentury
Philippines, and it’s astounding to think that it’s still a topic of debate and
conversation now.
▪ The Noli was translated into various languages in the years following its
publication.
▪ French was used in one of the first translations of the novel.
▪ Many academics believe that Ferdinand Blumentritt attempts to translate the
work into German (by Blumentritt) and even Tagalog (by Rizal’s brother,
Paciano) were made early on, but that these intentions were never
materialized.
▪Several different translations and versions of the novel were
published at the start of the twentieth century, during the
American colonial period.
▪The English translations of Charles Derbyshire were arguably the
most widely circulated versions.
▪Rizal’s Noli had multiple Spanish editions by the 1930s and
translations into English, French, Japanese, and several Philippine
languages, including Tagalog, Cebuano, Waray, Iloko, and Bikol
(Testa-De Ocampo, 2011).
▪ The dispute surrounding the passing of the Rizal Law demonstrated the text’s
relevance in the 1950s and beyond.
▪ Many academics have pointed out the politics of translation and the
complexities of converting the text into various formats.
▪ As Testa De Ocampo points out, despite the novel’s place among the greatest
altitudes of Philippine literary history, Filipinos rarely read it in its original
Spanish.
▪ Academics such as Benedict Anderson scrutinized the Noli’s versions and
translations as well.
▪ Rizal’s work has undeniable relevance in the Philippines, whether in terms of
substance, context, or how it is read or used.
NOLI AND THE STUDY OF A
COLONIAL SOCIETY
▪The content of Rizal’s Noli, which supported the
national hero’s articulations of a social scientific
understanding of the nineteenth-century
Philippines he was depicting, is particularly
noteworthy.
▪Rizal was dubbed “possibly the first systematic
social thinker in Southeast Asia” by sociologist
Syed Fareed Alatas.
▪When read in conjunction with Rizal’s other works, the Noli
contributes significantly to our knowledge of colonial society and
the workings of the Spanish empire in the Philippines.
▪The novel depicted characters’ lives in various positions that
connected to others in the nineteenth-century Philippines.
▪Many historians see the Noli as Rizal’s diagnosis of colonial
society’s faults, as he evaluates the roles of the church, state, and
people.
▪ Rizal outlined some of his ideas for emancipating Philippine society from
colonial tyranny in the Noli.
▪ He emphasized the value of education as a significant tool for advancement.
▪ He did, however, illustrate the complexity and limitations imposed by the
colonial condition not just on foreigners but also on some misguided
Filipinos who contributed to society’s woes.
▪ Rizal stressed the good attributes of the Filipinos, whichnneeded to be
harnessed in order to prevail in the struggle for freedom, as he exposed the
terrible realities of the setting he wrote about.
VIDEO CLIPS

▪Corruption on the rise in PH –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUqPdF8BH_0
▪Education in PH amidst the COVID-19 –Pandemic -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS2-iR32goY
▪Courtship in Philippines –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuLyey6feX4