Reading Rizal: Wilhelm Tell and texts of revolution in the colonial Philippines

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Philippines celebrates nationalist Jose Rizal as the ‘First Filipino’ who laid the intellectual foundation for the Philippine nation. He was executed by the Spanish colonial government for allegedly machinating a revolution against the motherland in 1896. In the historiography, discussions over where to place Rizal on the reform-to-revolution spectrum dominate. This article locates Rizal's often-neglected translation of Wilhelm Tell within his oeuvre, which gives new insight into Rizal's political position: Rizal argued as early as 1886 that after a turning point to which the subject has been pushed by the oppressor, a violent reaction is necessary and a revolution as a consequence thereof is legitimate. To make the translation legible to all Tagalog classes, he pasyonized the text and turned Friedrich Schiller’s Blankverse into Tagalog verses.