The Youth is the Hope of the Future

A timeless phrase in Philippine literature is that of Jose Rizal’s – “Ang kabataan ang pag-asa ng bayan” (The youth is the hope of the future). This year as we celebrated Rizal’s sesquicentennial or 150th birth anniversary, I speculate that his noble vision has remained an endless impression.

Rizal’s vision of the youth was a genius call of foresight. Its underlying thought encourages the youth to take action, accept challenges, and take responsibility. Since the youth have seen the. Read more >

Review on El Filibusterismo

El Filibusterismo by José Rizal

Translated and with an Introduction by Harold Augenbraum

El Filibusterismo is the sequel to Rizal's Filipino classic, Noli me tangere. It is set some thirteen years after the events of the earlier book. Noli is, of course, dominated by Juan Crisóstomo Ibarra and his ideals for a better future for the Philippines -- including fostering education as a means of improving the lot of the Filipinos. In both novels the corruption of those in power, and especially the friars -- representatives of the powerful Catholic Church -- is repeatedly shown and attacked. 

       At the beginning of El Filibusterismo Ibarra is supposed to. Read more >

Christ Crucified

Title: Christ crucified
Material: Crayon
Remarks: 1875

Sources:

http://s2.bloggerscdn.com/media/t/4922843/4922843_l_1362129724.jpg

http://www.joserizal.ph/pa01.html

Saturnina Rizal

Title: Saturnina Rizal

Material: Oil

Remarks: Now in Rizal Shrine in Fort Santiago

Source:

www.univie.ac.at

Biography and Works of Jose Rizal

Who was Jose Rizal? 

On June 19, 1861, the Mercado Family from the town of Calamba in the province of Laguna in the Philippines, happily greeted the birth of their newest member — a baby boy born as the seventh child to proud parents Francisco Rizal Mercado y Alejandro and Teodora Alonza y Quintos. They named the bouncing baby boy Jose Protacio Rizal Mercado. Being the. Read more >

Fast Facts About Jose Rizal

Full Name: Dr. José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda

Birthday: June 19, 1861

Birth Place: Calamba, Laguna

Parents: Francisco Mercado & Teodora Alonzo

Siblings: Read more >

The Diaries of Jose Rizal

MADRID -- 1 JANUARY 1883 - NOVEMBER 1884

1st January 1883

Night, I don't know what vague melancholy, an indefinable loneliness, smothers my soul. It is similar to the profound sadness that cities manifest after a tumultuous rejoicing, to a city after the happiest celebration. Two nights ago, that is, 30 December, I had a frightful nightmare when I almost died.¹ I dreamed that, imitating an actor dying on the stage, I felt vividly that my breath was failing and I was rapidly losing my strength. Then my vision became. Read more >

List of Books and Published Works of Jose Rizal

Novels

•               Noli Me Tangere

•               El Filibusterismo




Poems

•               To Josephine  (A Josefina)

•               To Miss C.O. y R. (A Senorita C.O. y R.)


•               To My  (A Mi)


•               To The Philippines  (A las Filipinas)


•               Water and Fire  (Aqua y Fiego)


•               Saint Eustache, Martyr  (San Eustaquio, Martir)


•               By the Banks of the Pasig River  (A Orillas del Pasig)


•               Along the Pasig  ( Junto al Pasig )



•               Kundiman  (Canto)

•               My Childhood Impressions

•               A Tribute to My Town  (Un Recuerdoa mi Pueblo)

•               To the Virgin Mary  (A la Virgen Maria)

•               To The Very Reverend Father Pablo Ramon, S.J.  (Al muy Padre Pablo Ramon S. J.)

•               To Don Ricardo Carcinero  (Al Don Ricardo Carnicero)

•               My Last Farewell  (Mi Ultimo Adios)

•               They Ask Me for Verses!  (Me PidenVerson)

•               Conquest of Granada or Triumphal Entry of the Catholic Kings in Granada  (La Conquista de Granada)

•               Intimate Alliance Between Religion and Education  (Allianza Intima del Educacion y religion)

•               Great Solace in the Greatest Misfortune  (Gran Consuelo en la mayor Desdicha)

•               Goodbye to Leonor  (Adios a Leonora)

•               Flower Among Flowers

•               Felicitation  (Felictación)

•               Elcano Was a Spaniard, The First to Circumnavigate the Earth

•               El Heroismo

•               Columbus and John II  (Colon yJuan II)

•               Cervantes at Argamasilla de Alba

•               Captivity and Triumph  ( ElCautivo y el triunfo)

•               To the Child Jesus  (Al Niño Jesús)

•               Abd-El-Azis and Mohammed  (Abd-El-Azizy Mahoma)

•               A Poem That Has No Title

•               To my Creator  (A mi Creador)

•               To the Flowers of Heidelberg  (A los Flores de Heidelberg) 

•               To the Filipino Youth  (A LaJuventud Filipina)

•               Hymn To Labor

•               Hymn to Talisay  (Himno a Talisay)

•               My Retreat  (Mi Retiro)

•               Our Mother Tongue

•               To My Fellow Youth   (Sa Aking mgaKababata)

•               Education Gives Luster to Motherland

•               The Song of Maria Clara  (Canto deMaría Clara)

•               First Inspiration

•               Memories of My Town 

•               My Last Thought

•               Song of the Wanderer 

•               A Fragment 

•               The Embarkation (El Embarque (Himno a la flota deMagallanes)

•               The Battle Urbiztondo, Terror of Jolo (El Combate: Urbiztondo, Terror de Jolo)

Prose

•               The Fisher Woman and the Fish

•               The Kite and the Hen

•               The Legend of Dona Geronima The Enchanted

•               The Sense of the Beautiful

•               The Significance of Palm Sunday

•               Two Brothers

•               On Travel

•               By Telephone  (Por teléfono)

•               Rizal's Impression of Madrid

•               Vision of Friar Rodriguez

•               The Tortoise and the Monkey

•               The Council of the Gods  (ElConsejo de los Dioses)

•               The Lord Gazes at the Philippine Islands

•               Unten den Linden

•               Mariang Makiling

•               A Free Thinker

•               A Pompous Gobernadorcillo

•               A Reminder To Those Fond of Lawsuits

•               A Soiree at the Home of Mr. B

•               After Mass

•               Alphonse Daudet: Tartarin Sur les Alpes

•               Dapitan

•               Essay on Pierre Corneille

•               Juan Luna

•               Love of Country

•               Marie Colombier the Pistol of the Little Baroness

•               Memories

•               Reminiscences of a Cock

•               Rizal Revista de Madrid

•               Rizal’s Response to the Welcome of the President

•               Sinagtala and Maria Maligaya

•               The Ancient Tagalog Nobility

•               The Feast of Saint Isidore 


Memorable and Political Writings

•               Annotations to Morga's 1609 Philippine History

•               To Barrantes regarding the Tagalog theatre

•               To Barrantes regarding the Noli

•               The turkey that caused the Kalamba land trouble

•               The Spanish schools of my boyhood

•               The Religiosity of the Filipino

•               To the Young Women of Malolos

•               Reflections of a Filipino

•               The Philippines a century hence  (Pilipinas dentro de cien anos)

•               Manifesto to certain Filipinos

•               An excerpt from Rizal's speech at the Café Habanero

•               Additions to my defense

•               The Injustice done my mother

•               The Best known speech of Dr. Jose P. Rizal

•               The Indolence of the Filipinos   (La Indolencia)

•               How One Governs in Filipinas  (Comese gobiernan las Filipinas)

•               Constitution of the Liga Filipina

•               The Friars and the Filipinos by José Rizal

Sources:

http://www.rizalinfo.net/works.html

http://reference.yourdictionary.com/books-literature/what-are-literary-works-jose-rizal.html

http://www.poemhunter.com/jose-rizal/poems/

http://www.joserizal.ph/pm01.html

Achievements of Jose Rizal

• He received his bachelor's degree in Arts with highest honors
• Taking the first year in agriculture in the Ateneo, he also completed this with highest honors.
• In a competition held by the "Liceo Artistico Litarario" with the poem "Al Juventud Filipina" (To the Filipino Youth) he won the special prize for "indians" and mestizos.
• In the same contest,  the first prize for prose was also awarded to José Rizal's "Consejo de los dioses (Council of the Gods)" and the judges gave it another special prize as the best critical appreciation of the author of "Don Quixote."
• Jose Rizal’s greatest achievement, he was declared to be the National Hero of the Philippines.

Source:

http://joserizal.info/Biography/d-education.htm

Things you probably don't know..

• There are three animals that we now know today that are named after Rizal.
1. Rhachophorous Rizali, a hetherto unknown species of toad.
2. Draco Rizali (Wandolleck), a species of flying dragons.
3. Apogonia Rizali, a small beetle

• Rizal was a penny-pincher.

• Rizal was considered as The Last Renaissance Man.

• Rizal was considered as a Universal Genius.

• He is the National Hero of the Philippines.

• He was an ophthalmologist, novelist, educator, farmer, historian, playwright, sculptor, painter and journalist.

• He graduated from Ateneo Municapal de Manila

• He wrote his first poem entitled: "Sa Aking mga Kababata" at the age of seven.

• His pulsed proved to be normal when the Spanish surgeon general requested to take his pulse moment's before Rizal's execution.

• Rizal was born with a big head. Literally speaking.

• He has one brother (Paciano), and nine sisters (Saturnina, Narcisa, Olympia, Lucia, Maria, Concepcion, Josefa, Trinidad and Soledad )

• He could read and write at the age of two.

• His full name is José Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda.

• He speaks more than twenty languages.

• His last poem was "Mi Ultimo Adios".

• He died at the age of thirty-five.

Sources:

http://www.joserizal.ph/ta02.html

http://www.spot.ph/gallery/1290/10-things-you-didn-rsquo-t-know-about-jose-rizal/article/48543

http://www.rizalpark.org/trivia/15-amazing-facts-about-jose-rizal/

http://www.tripsiders.com/blog/20-facts-about-dr-jose-p-rizal/#.US4HJKV3sy4

Benedict Anderson reviews Noli Me Tangere

Noli Me Tangere by José Rizal, translated by Soledad Lacson-Locsin

The central figure in the revolutionary generation was José Rizal, poet, novelist, ophthalmologist, historian, doctor, polemical essayist, moralist and political dreamer. He was born in 1861 into a well-to-do family of mixed Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Tagalog descent: five years after Freud, four years after Conrad, one year after Chekhov; the same year as Tagore; five years before Sun Yat-sen, three years before Max Weber, eight years before Gandhi, and nine before Lenin. Thirty-five years later he was arrested on false. Read more >

A Painting on a Pair of Mother of Pearl

These are shells painted by Rizal in Dapitan and given as a gift to Doña Leonor Valenzuela and later passed into the hands of Doña Margarita Valenzuela.

Leonor Valenzuela is one of Rizal's love interest. She is a tall girl from Pagsanjan. Rizal sent her love notes written in invisible ink. They could only be deciphered over the warmth of the lamp or candle. He visited her on the eve of his departure to Spain and bade her a last goodbye.

Sources:

http://joserizalselfilibusterismo.blogspot.com/2012/01/painting-on-pair-of-mother-of-pearl.html

http://www.joserizal.ph/pa01.html;

http://bloggers.com/post/a-painting-on-a-pair-of-mother-of-pearl-jose-rizals-painting-4922840; 

http://www.joserizal.ph/lv01.html

Segunda Katigbak: Jose Rizal's First Love

Jose Rizal was only a young boy of sixteen (16) when he first fell in love, and it was with Segunda Katigbak, a girl from Lipa, Batangas and two years his junior.  

According to Rizal, "She was rather short, with eyes that were eloquent and ardent at times and languid at others, rosy-cheeked, with an enchanting and provocative smile that revealed very beautiful teeth, and the air of a sylph; her entire self diffused a mysterious charm."

Sources:

http://thelifeandworksofrizal.blogspot.com/2012/02/rizals-romances.html

http://thelifeandworksofrizal.blogspot.com/2012/02/rizals-romances.html