Noli me tangere (novel)
Noli me tangere ( Don't touch me ) is a 1887 novel by José Rizal , the national hero of the Philippines , written during the Spanish colonial period to expose the injustices of the Catholic priests and the ruling government.
Two characters in the novel became classics in Filipino culture: the loving and steadfastly loyal Maria Clara and her biological father Dámaso, a member of the Spanish clergy.
The original version, printed in Berlin, is in Spanish because the novel was intended to be read in Spain. In the Philippines today, however, the book is mostly published and read in Filipino or English . Along with its sequel, El Filibusterismo (The Riot) , reading Noli me tangere is a must for high school students across the archipelago.
Origin situation
José Rizal, a Filipino nationalist and doctor, came up with the idea of writing a novel that would expose the evils of Filipino society after reading Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe . In his future novel, however, he wanted to express how backward, inadequate, uneducated and not conducive to the ideals of the Enlightenment the Filipino culture was. At the time he was a medical student at the Universidad Central de Madrid .
At a meeting of Filipinos at the house of his friend Pedro A. Paterno in Madrid on January 2, 1884, Rizal proposed that a novel be written about the Philippines by a group of Filipinos. His proposal was unanimously approved by those present at the ceremony. However, this project did not materialize. Those who had agreed to help Rizal with the novel had written nothing. Initially it was planned that the novel should cover and describe all phases of Filipino life, but most wanted to write about women. Rizal even observed how his companions became more devoted to gambling and flirting with Spanish women. For this reason, he rejected the plan to write together with co-authors and decided to write the novel alone.
The Latin title “ Noli me tangere ” ( don't touch me ) refers to the Gospel of John . What Rizal "touched" here were things that were so sensitive at the time that no one talked about them. He wrote to a friend:
“ But I undertook to do what nobody wanted to do. I wanted to respond to the slander that has been piled upon us and our country over so many centuries. [...] The events that I am telling have all happened, their description is true. "
action
After completing his studies in Europe, the young Juan Crisóstomo Ibarra y Magsalin is returning to the Philippines after seven years. On the day of his arrival in Manila, Don Santiago de los Santos “Capitán Tiago”, a friend of the family, organizes a welcome ceremony in his honor, attended by religious and other important figures. One of the guests, Brother Fray Dámaso Vardolagas, former pastor of Ibarra's hometown of San Diego, belittles and slandered him.
After Ibarra has left the ceremony, Teniente Guevara, an officer in the Guardia Civil , reveals to him the events that preceded the death of his father, Don Rafael Ibarra, a wealthy hacendero in the city. According to Guevara, Don Rafael was wrongly accused of being a heretic and, moreover, a flibustier (subversive). Dámaso had made this charge because Don Rafael did not go to confession. In addition, Dámaso's hostility towards Ibarra's father was compounded by another incident in which Don Rafael intervened in a battle between a tax collector and a child, and he was later accused of killing the former, although that incident was unintentional. After his arrest, secret enemies suddenly made further complaints. But when the matter was almost resolved, he died in prison of complications from illness. After he was buried in the local cemetery, Dámaso ordered that his remains be removed from there.
The next day Ibarra visits his fiancée Maria Clara, the lovely daughter of Capitán Tiago and a wealthy resident of the Binondo district . During this encounter, her long-term love is clearly evident, and Maria Clara has to read the farewell letter her lover wrote to her again before he went to Europe.
After a visit to his home village of San Diego and confrontation with the story of his father's death, Ibarra does not think about revenge, but follows his plan and wants to open a school because he believed that education paved the way for his father's progress Country will prepare. Ibarra would have been killed during the foundation stone consecration of the school had the mysterious Elías not warned him about the murder plot beforehand. Instead, the attacker dies in the event of an unfortunate incident.
After the inauguration, Ibarra hosts a lunch at which Dámaso belatedly bursts in. He insults Ibarra, who ignores the pastor's insolence. But when the memory of his late father catches up with him, he loses his temper and pounces on Dámaso, ready to stab him for his insolence. As a result , Dámaso excommunicated him, and used this opportunity to convince the already hesitant Tiago to forbid his daughter to marry Ibarra. Dámaso wanted Maria Clara to marry Linares, who had recently moved from Spain. With the help of the governor general, Ibarra's excommunication is lifted and the archbishop decides to accept him again as a member of the church .
A riot by Tulisanes (bandits) soon ensues in San Diego and the Spanish officials and brothers blame Ibarra for it. So he is arrested and imprisoned. As a result, he is despised by villagers who recently became his friends.
Meanwhile, a celebration is held at Capitán Tiago's house to announce the upcoming wedding of Maria Clara and Linares. With the help of Elías, Ibarra escaped from prison. At the beginning of his escape he went to see Maria Clara on the evening of the celebration and accused her of treason because he thought she had given the prosecutor a confidential letter he had written to her during his indictment trial. Maria Clara explains that she would never conspire against him, but that she was forced to hand over the letter to Father Salví in exchange for important letters that her mother had written before she was born.
Maria Clara is deeply saddened by the assumption that Ibarra was killed in a shootout while trying to escape. Deprived of hope and greatly disaffected, she asks Dámaso to be allowed to go to a convent as a nun. He reluctantly agrees to her when she threatens to take her own life with the demand “the monastery or death!”. Without her knowing it, Ibarra is still alive and managed to escape. It was Elías who had intercepted the shots.
It is Christmas Eve when Elías, seriously injured, reaches the place in the forest where he wanted to meet Ibarra, as he had explained to him while fleeing from one another. Instead, he finds the acolyte Basilio holding his already dead mother Sisa in his arms. She had lost her mind when she learned that her two sons, Crispín and Basilio, had been chased out of the monastery by the First Sacristan on suspicion that they had stolen money there.
Elías, convinced that he will soon die, instructs Basilio to build a pyre and burn Sisas and his body there. He tells Basilio that he should dig at this place later because he will find money here. In his last breath he whispers the invitation to continue dreaming of freedom for his fatherland, with the words:
“ I am dying without seeing the dawn glow over my fatherland…! You who will see it, welcome it ... do not forget those who fell in the darkness! "
Elías then dies.
The epilogue explains that Tiago became addicted to opium and that he was often seen in the opium house in Binondo. Maria Clara had entered the monastery. One stormy evening, a beautiful, crazy woman was seen on the roof ridge of the monastery complaining and cursing the sky for the fate he had given her. Even if it was never clarified who the woman was, it was assumed that it was Maria Clara.
Release history
Rizal completed the novel in December 1886. According to one of Rizal's biographers, he initially feared that the novel might not be printed and therefore never be read. Financial problems at the time made it difficult for him to follow his plan until the novel was printed. A friend named Máximo Viola then brought him the necessary financial support and helped him to be able to print the book in Berlin at the Berliner Buchdruckerei-Actiengesellschaft. At first, Rizal was reluctant to accept the offer, but, insisted by Viola, managed to borrow Rizal PHP 300 for an edition of 2000 copies. Noli me tangere finally went to press and was apparently completed earlier than the estimated time of five months, since Viola had come to Berlin in December 1886 and Rizal had already sent a copy of the novel to his friend Blumentritt on March 21, 1887 .
The first German translation of the novel was created on the initiative of the German Embassy in Manila . It was translated by Annemarie del Cueto-Mörth, who had the edition of the Instituto Nacional de Historia, Manila 1978, before. It was published by Insel Verlag on the 100th anniversary of the original edition in 1987 .
Reactions and legacy
The novel and its sequel, El Filibusterismo (The Rebellion) , have been banned in some parts of the Philippines for their portrayal of corruption and abuse of office by the Spanish government and the country's clergy. However, specimens were smuggled in and when Rizal returned to the Philippines after his stay in Europe, he quickly came into conflict with the political community. Only a few days after his arrival, the then Governor General Emilio Terrero called him to the Malacañang Palace and confronted him with the charge that Noli me tangere contained subversive statements.
A discussion could appease the governor general, but he was still unable to resist the pressure of the church against the book. The political persecution can be seen in a letter that Rizal sent to Leitmeritz (translation from English):
“ My book caused a lot of buzz; I am asked about it everywhere. They wanted to excommunicate me for this [excommunicate me] […] I am seen as a German spy, an agent of Bismarck , they say I am a Protestant , a Freemason , a witcher, a damned soul and angry. It is whispered that I am making plans that I have a foreign passport and that I roam the streets at night [...] "
Rizal was exiled to Dapitan and later arrested for "inciting rebellion", largely on the basis of his writings. Sentenced to death, he was shot dead in Manila on December 30, 1896, at the age of 35.
Rizal described nationality by highlighting the qualities of Filipinos: a Filipina's devotion and influence on a man's life, the profound sense of gratitude, and common sense of Filipinos under the Spanish regime.
His work has played a key role in establishing a uniform Filipino national identity and awareness, where many locals previously only identified with their respective region. It parodied, caricatured and exposed various elements of colonial society. Two characters in particular became classics in Filipino culture: Maria Clara, who became the personification of the ideal Filipino woman, loving and unwavering in her loyalty to her husband; and the pastor Brother Dámaso, reflecting the secret procreation of illegitimate children by members of the Spanish clergy.
The book indirectly influenced the revolution that fought for the separation of the Philippines from Spain, even if the author actually advocated direct representation in the Spanish government and a greater role for the Philippines in the political affairs of Spain. In 1956, the Congress of the Philippines passed Republic Act 1425, better known as the Rizal Act, which required all schools in the Philippines to include the novel as part of the curriculum. Noli me tangere is taught in the third year of high school and the continuation El Filibusterismo in the fourth year. The novels are integrated into teaching and exams on Filipino literature.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kolanoske, Lieselotte: “Biographical Note”, in: Noli me tangere. From the Filipino Spanish by Annemarie del Cueto-Mörth . Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 1987, 449.
- ↑ "Jose Rizal | Noli Me Tangere " , in: Jose Rizal ph: Rizal in Focus: Works: Novels , Jose Rizal University, 2004. (Accessed January 30, 2014)
- ^ "Republic Act No. 1425 “ , in: Chan Robles Virtual Law Library: Philippine Laws, Statutes & Codes , chanrobles.com. (Accessed January 31, 2014)