2. • Days flew fast like fleeting arrows in
Brussels. Rizal, unmindful of Suzanne
• Jacoby's enticing affection, was busy
correcting and polishing his second
• novel - El Filibusterismo.
• October, 1887 - He begun writing it in
Calamba.
• He made some changes in the plot and
revised the chapter already written.
• He wrote more chapters in Paris, Madrid
and Biarritz.
• March 29, 1891 - He finished the
manuscript in Biarritz, after toiling on it for
• three years.
• From Brussels, Rizal moved to Ghent,
where printing was cheaper .
• September 18, 1891 - El Filibusterismo,
the sequel to the Noli, came of the
• press
Privations in Ghent
• July 5, 1891 Rizal left Brussels for Ghent
Reasons:
- The cost of living was lower
- The cost of printing in Ghent was cheaper
than in Brussels
- To escape from the enticing attraction of
Petite Suzanne
• Owing to his limited funds Rizal lived in a
cheap boarding house, with Jose
Alejandro as roommate
• They lived frugally in Ghent for 3 months
form July to September
• To economize further on their living
expenses, they prepared their own
breakfast
3.
4. The Printing of
El Filibusterismo
• The publisher F. Meyer-Van Loo Press, no.
66 Viaanderen Street
was willing to print his book on installment
basis
• He pawned his jewels in order to pay the
down payment and
early partial expenses during the printing of
the novel
• Rizal became desperate because his funds
were running low
• He received some money from Basa and
200 from Rodriguez
Arias for the copies of Morga's Sucesos sold
in Manila but these
funds were also used up.
• July 1891 Rizal wrote a letter to Basa
saying that if no money comes he will
have to stop its publication.
• August 6 The printing had to be
suspended, as Rizal feared, because he
could no longer give the necessary
funds to the printer.
5. El Filibusterismo
Comes off the Press
• Valentin Ventura heard Rizal's predicament he
immediately sent the amount of money needed to
finish the publication of the novel.
• September 18, 1891 El Fili came off to Press.
• Rizal immediately sent 2 copies to Hongkong one
for Basa and the other
to Sixto Lopez.
• He gratefully gave the original manuscript of El
Fili and a printed copy with his autograph to
Valentin Ventura.
• Filipino patriots praised the novel. The members
of the colony of Barcelona published a tribute in La
Publicidad, a Barcelona newspaper eulogizing the
novel's original style which "is comparable only to
the sublime Alexander Dumas" "a model and
precious jewel in the now
decadent literature of Spain
The liberal Madrid newspaper, El Nuevo
Regimen, serialized the novel in its issues
of October, 1891.
• All copies of the first edition (Ghent
Edition) of El Fili were placed in wooden
boxes and shipped to Hong Kong, but
almost all the
boxes were confiscated and all the books
were lost.
• The book immediately became rare and
few available Ghent copies were sold at
very high prices, reaching as high as 400
pesetas per copy
6. Dedication of the Novel
• To the memory of the priests, Don
Mariano Gomez (85 years old), Don
Jose Burgos (30 years old), and Don
Jacinto Zamora (35 years old).
Executed in Bagumabayan Field on
the 28th of February, 1872.
• To straighten historical records,
however, we must rectify Rizal’s
historical inaccuracies in his
dedicatory note. The martyrdom of
Gomburza occurred on February 7,
1872. Father Gomez was 73 years old
- not 85, Father Burgos was 35 years
- not 30, and Father Zamora was 37
years old - not 35
7. The manuscript
• The original manuscript of El Fili in Rizal’s
own handwriting is now preserved in the
Filipiniana Division of the Bureau of Public
Libraries, Manila
• The manuscript of the book
- Acquired by Valentin Ventura for P10,000
- - consisting of 279pages of long sheets of
paper
• 2 features that didn’t appear in the
printed book
- Foreword
- Warning
• These two were not put into print,
evidently, to save printing cost.
- Fore word – appears just befor the
dedicatiory page in the manuscript. It is
for the filipino people and the
government.
- Warning – found on the other side of the
dedication
• The title page of el fili contains an
inscription written by Ferdinand
blumentrit.
8. Synopsis of
the ElFilibusterismo
• Simoun - the main protagonist of the story
a rich jeweler.
• Dona Victorina - ridiculously a pro-spanish
woman.
• Tiburcio de Espadana - husband of Dona
Victorina.
• Paulita Gomez - beautiful niece of Don
Tiburcio.
• Ben-Zayb - Spanish journalist who writes
silly articles about Filipinos.
• Padre Sibyla - Vice-Rector of UST.
• Padre Camorra - spanish priest of Tiani.
• Don Custodio - pro-spanish Filipino
holding a high position in the government.
• Padre Salvi - Franciscan friar a former
cura of San Diego.
• Padre Irene - a kind friar who was a friend
to Filipino students
• Padre Florentino - a retired scholarly and
patriotic Filipino priest.
• Isagani - nephew of Padre Florentino and
lover of Paulita
• Basilio - son of Sisa a promising medical
student
• Capitan Tiago - patron of Basilio
• Quiroga - rich Chinese merchant
• Cabesang Tales - father of Juli
dispossessed of his land in Tiani by friars
• Juli - the lover of Basilio
• Makaraig - rich and leader of Filipino
students in their movement to learn Spanish
in the academy
9. • Padre Millon - teaches Physics in UST
w/o experiments
• Placido Penitente - student of Padre
Millon who bacame
disoriented because of the poor methods
of instruction
Senor Pasta - old Filipino lawyer who
refuses to help Filipino
students in their advocacy
• Tandang Selo - grandfather of Juli.
• Mr. American - owner of the sideshow at
the fair of Quiapo
exhibiting an Egyptian Mummy.
• Sandoval - a Spanish student who
supports the cause of the Filipino students
to propagate the teaching of Spanish
• Cabesa Andang - mother of Placido
Penitente
Characters from El Filibusterismo
were drawn by Rizal from real life.
• Padre Florentino was Father Leoncio
Lopez
• Isagani was Vicente Ilustre
• Paulita Gomez was Leonor Rivera
10. summary of El Filibusterismo
The book narrates the return of the
protagonist of Noli Me Tangere,
Crisostomo Ibarra, under the
disguise of a wealthy jeweler named
Simoun.
Disillusioned by the abuses of the
Spanish, Ibarra abandons his pacifist
beliefs in order to return to the Philippines
and start a violent revolution.
Noli Me Tangere's Basilio, now a young
man and a skilled medical student, is
recruited by Ibarra to aid him in detoning
a bomb at a social gathering, signaling
the beginning of the revolution. However,
Basilio warns his friend Isagani.
Realizing that the woman he loves is in
the building, Isagani throws the bomb into
the river, averting the explosion and the
revolution. Implicated in these matters,
Simoun commits suicide by taking poison
and finds resting place at the home of a
priest, Father Florentino, who hears his
last confession and assures him that not
all hope is lost
The priest (Father Florentino), upon
Simoun's death, commends the jewels into
the sea, remarking that the jewels once
used to bribe and corrupt people, would
one day be hopefully found to be used for
a meaningful
purpose
11. Noli
Romantic novel
Work of the heart
A book of feeling
It has freshness, color, humr,
lightness, and wit
64 chapters
Fili
Political novel
Work of head
A book of thought
It contains bitterness, hatred,
pain, violence, and sorrow
38 chapters
12. The Unfinished 3rd Novel
• September 22, 1891 Rizal wrote to
Blumetritt saying that he's thinking of
writing a third novel where ethics will play
principal role.
• October 18, 1891 boarded the steamer
Melbourne in Marseilles bound for Hong
Kong.
• During the voyage he wrote the third
novel in Tagalog in which he intended for
Tagalog readers
• In Hong kong he continued it, but did not
finish it because his Tagalog was
inadequate for literary purposes.
• The unfinished 3rd novel has no title.
• It consists of 44 pages in Rizal's
handwriting.
• The manuscript is still preserved in the
Bureau of Public Libraries.
• The hero of the novel was Kamandagan,
a descendant of Lakan-Dula, last king of
Tondo. He plotted to regain the lost
freedom of his fathers.
• It is said that Rizal was fortunate not to
finish this novel, because it would have
caused greater scandal and more
Spanish vengeance on him
13. Other Unfinished novels
• Makamisa *a tagalog novel
*written in light sarcastic style
* incomplete with only 2 chapters
*consists of only of 20 pages
•Dapitan *written in Ironic Spanish
*he wrote it while in Dapitan to depict
the town life and customs
*Consists of 8 pages
• A novel in Spanish about the life in
Pili, a town in Laguna:
- consist of 147 pages
- without title
• Another unfinished novel of Rizal, also
without title, is about Cristobal, a
youthful Filipino student who has
returned from Europe
- consists if 34 pages
• The beginning of another novel are
contained in two notebooks. The first
notebook contains 31 written pages while
the second contains 12 pages
- written in Spanish and the style is ironic
