THE FICTION OF A

KNOWABLE COMMUNITY
Necessary Fictions: Philippine Literature and the Nation
Hau, Caroline. 2000
Summarized by:
MARY GRACE CARRIDO BAYWONG, PhD
Saint Louis University
 Learning outcome
•How Noli Me Tangere
contributed to the formation
of national consciousness
 NOLI ME TANGERE

• MASTER NARRATIVE vs. national novels of

Latin America
• What kind of community did Rizal conjure up?
• Noli Me Tangere as founding text of Philippine
Nationalism
 Rizal’s effort to invent
the FILIPINO
• TWO RESPECTS:
• 1. narrates effort of invention, the effort one of its key
subjects
• 2. Philippine literature valorizes this theme of inventing
the Filipino through the concept of a singular text
(Novela Tagala)
 KNOWABLE COMMUNITY
concept of MODERN NATIONHOOD out of
vicissitudes of colonial rule- Filipino national community
KNOWABLE- not just an artistic imagination ethical and
political
decision to speak of the Philippines to fellow Filipinos
ethno-political decision
 Fantasizing about Rizal and/as the MOD
• 1887 Rizal returned to the Philippines
• Germany as his scientific homeland (seat of scientific learning and
discovery
OBSERVE reactions to his novel
UST- heretical, impious, scandalous, antipatriotic, subversive of poilitical
order offensive to government of Spain

RUMORS
German Spy, agent of Bismarck, protestant, freemason, half damned soul
 modernization

What a Filipino nation is or should be but

how a nation is actualized; appropriating
modern ideas and practices identified as
having
a. Foreign - viewpoint of critics
b. External source- Rizal’s viewpoint
 MODERNITY

a. as specific conjuncture of the world but historical forces,

INSTRUMENTAL IN SHAPING Philippine history
b. How and wherefore of human freedom in increasing secular,
technical and international context
Human freedom
-Descriptive component
-Normative component
 NOVELS
• CONSTRUCTED THE NATION
• Deploying narrative of development that invoked
yet questioned universal norms that define a
specifically modern community (temporal and
spatial terms)
• Idea of FLEXIBILITY AND ADAPTABILITY to
context different from its point of origin
• Space of thinking- Rizal political possibilities of
NATIONHOOD
 FILIPINO NATIONNESS
• Based on narrative of progress development and
change vs colonial regime; vs internationalism
(competing colonial powers)
• Rizal’s imagined nation- fraught with hope and risk
• Conception of ethical imperative of development
and change
 FREEDOM AND AGENCY

• Idea of modern nation of radical transformation and

emancipating capacities
• Depicted as epitome of modern renaissance man
• TO SPEAK OF RIZAL IS ALREADY TO SPEAK OF
THE MODERN
NATIONAL HERO? 9 years abroad, Noli and Fili
written abroad- returned to the Philippines
Persecution and martyrdom in the hands of the
Spaniards crystallized popular resistance
AMERICAN SPONSORED?
Established a reputation- potential rallying point of
forces coalesced into anti colonial movements
CHANGED THE HISTORY OF THE NATION
• Public reputation cutting across several sections of social life and
classes known beyond circle of hispanized Filipinos ( Gov Gen. “I
wish I read it”)
• (Leon Ma. Guerrero biography) FIRST FILIPINO
• 2,000 copies
• Problem of censorship; language in Spanish, amateurish handling
of distribution
• Read by Spaniards and educated Filipinos
• Extraordinary impact on the imagination of countryman (no
explanation of influence)
 From letters of Rizal
• RUMORS- Noli Me Tangere was controversial
• Relaying of content
• Repeated in reputable newspapers (LA EPOCA)
1887 CLINIC IN Calamba – DOCTOR ULIMAN (Quirino’s
version)
“Susmaryosep, ikaw lang pala. Salamat”
Coates version “Oh That” and goes away in disgust
 Native can be modern

• Modern- unimaginable
• DOCTOR –secular (not a priest), technical
• FOREIGNER- international
• Appearance is modern –overcoat derby hat
 NOVEL AND NATION AS MODERN
ResilARTIFACT
Mojares –Noli within the context of cultural
Nationalism out of specific historical and technological
developments
- Formation of print culture
- Rise of hispanized class
DRAMATIC AND QUALITATIVE LEAP- a
culmination of development in local literature leading
to 1887 as well as full demonstration of the novel form
in Europe
(Resil Mojares)- most important literary works produced
by a Filipino writer animating Filipino consciousness.
Setting standards no Filipino writer can ignore
Portraying society in which imperatives for restructuring
of power are already present
???? Degree to which considered Filipino (foreign spaces)
• NOVELS LIE WITHIN NATIVE DEVELOPING
TRADITION OF PROSE NARRATIVE
• FORM- European 19th century sense of form
• CONTENT analysis
JOHN SCHUMACHER
Material and ideological forces are instrumental in defining aspiratins
of native Filipinos in nationalist terms
CHARTER OF NATIONALISM FOR FILIPINOS
a catalyst of revolution (1872 articulated by Rizal)
Filipino struggle for unity, equality and freedom
 NEW DIRECTION
`

Filipino art and literature in relation to nationalism

NINAY- Pedro Paterno
travelogue (LM Guerrero)
NOLI- political message, realities of the country (emergence of
national consciousness)
 RELATION OF NOVEL AND NATION
Question of nation and role of culture played in the formation of a
nation are sine qua non
Letter to Blumentritt_ 21 March 1887
-first impartial and bold book about life of the Tagalogs, history of the last ten
years
I must wake from slumber the spirit of my Fatherland…
“I have unmasked hypocrisy which under the cloak of Religion, came among
us to impoverish us, to brutalize us; I have distinguished the true Religion from
the false, from the superstitious, from that which traffics with the sacred word
to extract money, to make us believe in foolishness which Catholicism would
blush at if it had knowledge of it, I have unveiled what is hidden behind the
deceptive and brilliant words of our government; I have told our compatriots of
our faults, our vices, our culpable and shameful complacence with these
miseries”
Several features- metaphor of clinical diagnosis
• Body and social condition
• Question of truth accuracy and veracity (right diagnosis for
correct cure
• Refers to himself ( doctor who diagnose, patient that suffers the
disease)
• 5 March 1887 Letter to Hidalgo
• Incidents are true, give proofs
• Defects from artistic and aesthetic point of view
• Letter to Blumentritt
• Why not ethnography? HISTORY
• FILL GAP OF HISTORY , focusing on present instead of past
• Local and independent expression
• ONLY ACCESS IS CULTURE
• Even invoked fictional quality to dissociate from critics
Literature has the capacity to intervene in history to help reconstruct it
Literature enters history through knowable communities (generates
literature that describes it as knowable community
LITERATURE AND HISTORY IS RECIPROCAL
 WHO IS FILIPINO?

• CREOLES
• NATIVES
• MESTIZOS
• SANGLEY
 Benedict Anderson
• Analysis of Nationalism, nationness as cultural artefact
• NOLI (NOVEL) FLORANTE AT LAURA (ROMANCE)
• METRICAL ROMANCE, 1830S, Balagtas self conscious
society

• Recent setting distant past

• History and journalism based on epic
• Author’s locale remorte and exotic location
• History blends fact and fiction
IDEOLOGY LIKE NATION
•NATION- free, universal and self generating > NOVEL
(TRANSLATABLITY)
• Rooting in antiquity
• Frame of reference is not history but social processes of
signification, world of the LIVED as opposed to actual
experiences;

•IDEOLOGY
• fails to communicate; capacity to command ;affective loyalties
• Human mutability; mortality
 EMERGENCE OF NOVEL AND
NATIONS
• Printing technology
• Capitalism
• Rise of the bourgeoisie as class
• Urbanization
• Secularization
• reform
 Michael McKeon

Question of truth and question of virtue

• Novel – ability to juxtapose the two
• Cementing agent is PRINT ( changed the ways in which truth is
apprehended and methods for apprehending it
PRINT contributed and reinforced OBJECTIVE standard of truth and
HISTORICAL standard of truth
rapid circulation of matters of public interest
references
 references
.