Noli Me Tángere (Latin for "Touch Me Not") is a novel by Filipino writer and activist José Rizal and was published during the Spanish colonial period of the Philippines. It explores inequities in law and practice in terms of the treatment by the ruling government and the Spanish Catholic friars of the resident peoples in the late 19th century.
Originally written by Rizal in Spanish, the book has since been more commonly published and read in the Philippines in either Tagalog (the major indigenous language), or English. The Rizal Law requires Noli, published in 1887, and its 1891 sequel, El filibusterismo, to be read by all high school students throughout the country. Noli is studied in Grade 9 and in Grade 10. The two novels are widely considered to be the national epic of the Philippines. They have been adapted in many forms, such as operas, musicals, plays, and other forms of art.
The title originates from the Biblical passage John 20:13-17. In Rizal's time, it also referred to cancers that occurred on the face, particularly cancers of the eyelid; touching such lesions irritated them, causing pain. As an ophthalmologist, Rizal was familiar with the cancer and the name. He is explicit about the connection in the novel's dedication, which begins: ('To my country') and continues with "...a cancer of so malignant a character that the least touch irritates it and awakens in it the sharpest pains." Rizal probes the cancers of Filipino society. Early English translations of the novel used different titles, such as An Eagle Flight (1900), The Social Cancer (1912), and The Lost Eden (1961), but more recent English translations use the original title.
Background José Rizal, a Filipino nationalist and polymath, conceived the idea of writing a novel that would expose the backwardness and lack of progress of Philippine society because of the burden of colonization. According to historian Carlos Quirino, the novel bears similarities in terms of characterization and plot to the Spanish novelist Benito Pérez Galdós' "Doña Perfecta".Quirino, Carlos (1940). The Great Malayan: The Biography of Rizal. Philippine Education Company, 1958. p. 75. Retrieved April 11, 2021. Rizal intended to express the way Filipino culture was perceived to be backward, anti-progress, anti-intellectual, and not conducive to the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment. At the time, he was a student of medicine at the Universidad Central de Madrid.
Other Filipinos were also working or studying in Madrid which, as the capital of Spain, was the center of culture and universities. At a gathering on January 2, 1884, of friends at the house of Pedro A. Paterno, Rizal proposed that a group of Filipinos should collaborate on a novel about the Philippines. His proposal was unanimously approved by those present, among whom were Pedro, Máximo Viola and Antonio Paterno, Graciano López Jaena, Evaristo Aguirre, Eduardo de Lete, Julio Llorente, and Valentin Ventura. However, they never got into the project. Although agreeing to help, none of the others wrote anything. Initially, Rizal planned for the novel to encompass all phases of Filipino life, but most of his friends, all young males, wanted to write about women. Rizal saw that his companions spent more time gambling and flirting with Spanish women than writing. Because of this, he decided to draft the novel alone.
The title, Noli me tangere, originates from John 20:17 as purportedly spoken by Jesus to Mary Magdalene following his resurrection. Rizal used the title of Noli me tangere as it was often used by opthalmologists to represent cancer of the eye in the 19th century. Rizal alluded this representation to the blindness of which Philippine society had regarding the exploitation of the Philippines by the Spanish.
Plot Crisóstomo Ibarra, the mestizo son of the recently deceased Don Rafael Ibarra, returns to San Diego in Laguna after seven years studying in Europe. At a reunion in Manila hosted by family friend Kapitán Tiago, Crisóstomo encounters Padre Dámaso, the former San Diego parish priest, who treats him with unexpected hostility. Lieutenant Guevara, another friend of Don Rafael, later warns Crisóstomo that his father may have been killed for political reasons and that Dámaso may have been involved.
The next day, Crisóstomo visits María Clara, Tiago's daughter and his childhood sweetheart. Before leaving for San Diego, he reminisces with her about their past and their hopes for the country.
In San Diego, Crisóstomo discovers that his father's grave has been desecrated. A gravedigger explains that Dámaso ordered Don Rafael's remains transferred to the Chinese cemetery, but he instead threw the body into the lake out of fear and pity. Crisóstomo confronts the new parish priest, Padre Bernardo Salví, who reveals that Dámaso gave the order. Crisóstomo forgives the priests and resolves to improve the town. Believing his paisanos need better education than that provided by government schools influenced by the friars, he plans a private school. With support from local residents and Spanish authorities, and with advice from Don Anastacio and a progressive schoolmaster, the project quickly advances.
During a picnic at the Laguna de Baý, Crisóstomo and his companions encounter a crocodile in the Ibarras' fish pens. Crisóstomo and the boatman Elías subdue it together, and Elías becomes indebted to him. On the day of the town fiesta, Elías warns Crisóstomo that someone plans to kill him during the cornerstone-laying ceremony. The attack fails, killing the would-be assassin instead. At the ensuing luncheon, Dámaso publicly insults Crisóstomo and Don Rafael. Enraged, Crisóstomo attacks him and threatens him with a knife, but releases him when María Clara pleads for mercy. Crisóstomo is excommunicated, though the sympathetic Captain-General later has the excommunication lifted. When Crisóstomo returns to San Diego, however, María is ill and refuses to see him.
Elías, recognizing Crisóstomo's influence with the government, privately tells him that a revolutionary group has tried to recruit him. He also recounts his family's history: his grandfather, a Manila bookkeeper, was falsely accused of arson by his Spanish employer, and the resulting prosecution and social ostracism destroyed his family. Crisóstomo says he cannot help because his school is his priority, prompting Elías to distance himself from him. Days later, however, Elías warns Crisóstomo that a planned uprising is a trap: its organizers have falsely invoked Crisóstomo's name, while the authorities already know of the plot and intend to spring a trap on the rebels. Crisóstomo abandons his school project and asks Elías to destroy documents that could implicate him. Elías discovers the name Don Pedro Eibarramendia, the ancestor of Crisóstomo's family and the same Spaniard who accused his grandfather. Horrified, Elías leaves.
The uprising occurs, and many rebels are captured or killed after identifying Crisóstomo as their supposed leader. He is arrested. The conspirators are subsequently found dead because Salví, who masterminded the plot, ordered them killed to silence them. Elías secretly returns to the Ibarra mansion, destroys incriminating documents and valuables, and burns the house. Crisóstomo and his fellow prisoners are taken to jail amid the townspeople's hostility.
In Manila, Tiago hosts a dinner celebrating María Clara's engagement to Alfonso Linares, a peninsular Spaniard whom she was expected to marry after Crisóstomo's excommunication. Among the guests are Salví, Padre Sibyla, and Lieutenant Guevara. Guevara explains that Crisóstomo was convicted because an enemy copied the handwriting and signature from a letter he had written before leaving for Europe, using them to fabricate recruitment letters for the uprising. Crisóstomo could have disproved the accusation by denying the signature on his original letter, but upon recognizing it as his farewell letter to María Clara, he loses the will to defend himself and is sentenced to deported. Guevara privately congratulates María for surrendering the letter, believing she has secured her own peaceful future, but she is devastated.
Crisóstomo escapes prison with Elías's help and secretly confronts María. She admits surrendering his letter because Salví discovered letters from her pregnant mother to Dámaso requesting an abortion, revealing that Dámaso is María's biological father. Salví blackmailed her with the letters and demanded Crisóstomo's farewell letter in exchange for concealing the secret. Crisóstomo forgives María, and they part after reaffirming their love.
Crisóstomo and Elías flee through the Estero de Binondo and the Pasig River. Elías reveals that his family's treasure is buried in the Ibarra forest and urges Crisóstomo to flee abroad with him. Elías refuses, however, because he remains committed to reforming the country. Crisóstomo then reveals that he has come to favor revolution, even beyond what Elías is willing to pursue. Pursued by sentries across Laguna de Bay, they separate: Elías jumps into the water to distract the soldiers and is shot repeatedly, while Crisóstomo escapes.
The next day, María reads that Crisóstomo was killed. She demands that Dámaso cancel her marriage and allow her to enter the convent. Dámaso admits that he deliberately ruined Crisóstomo because he was a mestizo and Dámaso wanted María to marry a peninsular Spaniard who could provide security. Knowing the danger posed by Salví's presence at the convent, Dámaso begs María to reconsider, but she refuses. He reluctantly consents, believing convent life preferable to her suicide.
Meanwhile, Basilio pursues his mentally broken mother, Sisa, through the Ibarra forest. Driven insane by her husband's abuse, the death of her younger son at Salví's hands, and the loss of Basilio to the Guardia Civil, Sisa dies in Basilio's arms inside the Ibarra mausoleum. Elías, mortally wounded, reaches them and asks Basilio to cremate their bodies and, if no one comes, search the mausoleum for treasure to fund his education. Before Basilio leaves for wood, Elías dies, lamenting that he will not live to see freedom and urging those who do to welcome it and remember those who died in darkness.
Afterward, Dámaso is transferred to a remote town and dies in despair. Tiago becomes depressed, addicted to opium, and forgotten. Salví, awaiting consecration as a bishop, serves as chaplain to the Convent of the Poor Clares. During a storm, patrolmen report seeing a specter on the convent roof. The next day, a nun with a wet and torn gown tells a government representative of "tales of horror" and begs for "protection against the outrages of hypocrisy," strongly suggesting that Salví has raped her. The abbess declares the nun insane, and subsequent attempts to investigate are blocked. Nothing further is revealed about the nun or María Clara.
Publication history Rizal finished the novel in March 1887. At first, according to one of Rizal's biographers, Rizal feared the novel might not be printed, and that it would remain unread. He was struggling with financial constraints at the time and thought it would be hard to pursue printing the novel.
His friend Máximo Viola provided some financial aid, enabling Rizal to have the book printed at Berliner Buchdruckerei-Aktiengesellschaft in Berlin. Viola loaned Rizal ₱300 for 2,000 copies. The printing was finished earlier than the estimated five months. Viola arrived in Berlin in December 1886, and by March 21, 1887, Rizal had sent a copy of the novel to his friend, Ferdinand Blumentritt.
Spanish authorities in the Philippines banned the book, but copies were smuggled into the country. The first Philippine edition (and the second published edition) was printed in 1899 in Manila by Chofre y Compania in Escolta.
Recent English editions