Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo

Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo

Lecture from Prof Francis August Ramos

Transcribed by Nikko Izar

Noli Me Tangere

NOVELA EL TAGALA

Influenced by Eugene Sue’s The Wandering Jew

Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Harriet Beecher Stowe

Bible

Describing the Philippines under the Spanish Government and Church

Jose Rizal was a student in Univiersidad Central de Madrid

House of Paterno – every propagandist will give a chapter as their contribution

But the propagandist wants to write about women in Europe and about gambling

Rizal wrote it by himself

“Don’t touch me”, Huwag mo kong salingin

It should be in the gospel of John instead of Luke “Araw ng Pagkabuhay” / Resurrection with St. Mary of Magdalene

It was made in Madrid, Paris and Germany

Lost chapter in Elias at Salome

Finished in 1887 Berlin

2000 copies for P300 borrowed from Maximo Viola

Copies were given to Ferdinand Blumentritt, Graciano Lopez, Mariano Ponce and Felix Hidalgo

The galley proof was given to Mr. Viola as sense of gratitude

Dedicated to the Philippines

Social Cancer

Chapter 1 – House of Kapitan Tiyago

Characters: Crisostomo Ibara son of Don Rafael Ibarra – friend of Kapitan Tiyago (owner of the house)




Ma. Clara – lover of the main character

Padre Damaso-fat Franciscan curate of San Diego

Padre Sibyla – Dominican friar of Binondo

Senyor Guevarra – Tenyente

Don Tiburcio de Espadana and Donya Victorina

Easy reading, more of action and motion (Voltairian)

EL FILIBUSTERISMONOVELA EL FILIPINA

Motivated by the Calamba affair and not by his experience in his student years

Both Noli and El Fili shows strong anti-Clerical and even anti-Catholic color

It discredit the colonial government and religious institutes

A weapon used by a rationalist liberal of the 19th century would use

Made in Brussels Belgium in Ghent with Jose Alejandrino and Edilberto Evangelista

With the help of Valintin Ventura

Dedicated to Gomburza

Noli – love story, El Fili – revenge and anger

Both show situation of the Philippines during the Spanish Period

Idea of liberalism, Freedom and Revolution

Thoughtful, discursive and dialectical

Effects of Leonor Rivera, Calamba Controversy, M.H del Pilar

El Fili students – humorous, critical, serious, optimist, frivolous, pessimists, industrious, indifferent, noisy, silent, leaders and followers

Students discussing and debating – defeat of their cause

Plans of students – revolution




Simoun – want to have an academy of Spanish language – organization of Jehu

El Fili professors – Father Millon – the bad professor in Physics

Father Sibyla – not loved by Rizal – became vice rector of the university

Shows discrimination (Tabo)

Students of UST

1.Isagani- unfaithful sweetheart oof Paulita Gomez

-without notable defects, intelligent, generous, reasonable and brave

2.Basilio- adopted by Kapitan Tiyago

-Another angle of Rizal as a medical student

-Shows enigmatic ambiguity character and feeling

-oscillating between fear and hope

-like Rizal – Pessimism and optimism, illusion and disappointments of Rizal

3. Makaraeg- afford to go to Europe

-leadership character like Rizal in Companeros de Jehu

-very rich

-comfortable financial situation like Rizal

-discreet

4. Sandoval – Peninsulares

-shows a 19th century Spanish liberalist, open-minded, great orator, anti-clerical

5.Tadeo- Lachuacha student, like holidays, most interested with the girls

-universal type of person common to all schools, periods and places

6.Pecson- scpetical, pessimistic, anti-type of Sandoval

-Mistrust of the government and friars

-also like Rizal

7. Juanito Pelaez- always irritates his classmates




Unforgivable crime- he married Paulita Gomez

8.PLacido Penintente – Peaceful, placid patient, unhappy experience in the classroom

-joined the rebels

Priest – hypocritical, meddling, ignorant, conservative

Ibarra- liberalist free thinking

Friars – wicked

Filipinos – despairing

Kill all the Spanish authorities and friars!

Reaction of Noli:

Jose Rodriguez – full of heresies, blasphemies and grossest errors

False, rash, offensive to friars, injuruos to the sacred hierarch, to the faithful, impious, foolish, erroneous, heretic

Recurrenty Themes in Rizal’s Works by Florentino H. Hornedo, Ph. D.

These are what I percieve to be recurrent themes in the works of Jose Rizal

1. God is the ultimate reason of the universe

2. all humans are equal in dignity

3. Freedom in an essential component of human dignity and

4. love is the supreme manifestation of a human’s recognition of his divine origin

GOD IS THE ULTIMATE REASON OF THE UNIVERSE

Rizal called it Providence, God, and so forth. He believed in a God who made himself known by the unfolding of the human mind through:

1. education and

2. enlightenment by the natural sciences

He did not think much of politics and power- grabbing intrigues. Only scientific solutions really work in the interest of the human community

ALL HUMANS ARE EQUAL IN DIGNITY




No human is born superior to thers in dignity. The apparenr inferiority of certain oppressed peoples is caused by their oppressed and brutalization of oppressors. The white man has been particularly guilty of this oppression.

This must be upheld as honor at all times, and be defended even to the death. He saw the emerging need of violence as a last resort, but he was unwilling to accept the concomitant death of innocent bystanders and ill-prepared revolutionaries.

FREEDOM IS ESSENTIAL TO DIGNITY

UNLESS A HUMAN IS FREE, THE SPIRIT HE/SHE RECEIVED FROM GOD CANNOT UNFOLD, WITHOUT FREEDOM,

1. THE BEST IDEAS CANNOT BE EXPRESSED

2. SCIENCES CANNOT FLOURISH AND WITHOUT THE SCIENCES;

-NO MATERIAL PROGRESS

-THERE WOULD BE NO DESTITUTION OF BODY AND SPIRIT

Dignity is virtuousness; and virtue means living according to principles, NOT according to mere convenience.

Love is the supreme manifestation of any human’s recognition of his divine origin

Rizal was often nearly mystical. He had tender sympathy for the poor and helpless:

1. He tried to alleviate pain through medicine;

2. He taught the ignorant

3. He provided potable water for the people of Dapitan;

4. He was concerned for the basic needs and happiness of his family and other people around him.

This consuming concern for people’s welfare was his religion.

Documents

Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo