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Leon Ma. Guerrero's translations of Rizal's works were influenced by his own inclinations and biases. Guerrero eliminated or altered many cultural references and passages from the original works. This included removing untranslated tags, quotes from European masters, and sarcastic or erudite phrases. The effect was to distort Rizal's original intentions and meanings. While Guerrero aimed to resist Spanish colonialism, his translations promoted American colonialism instead. By removing context and notes, the translations lost Rizal's cultural identity and message for modern readers.

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Rica Regoris
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130 views

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Leon Ma. Guerrero's translations of Rizal's works were influenced by his own inclinations and biases. Guerrero eliminated or altered many cultural references and passages from the original works. This included removing untranslated tags, quotes from European masters, and sarcastic or erudite phrases. The effect was to distort Rizal's original intentions and meanings. While Guerrero aimed to resist Spanish colonialism, his translations promoted American colonialism instead. By removing context and notes, the translations lost Rizal's cultural identity and message for modern readers.

Uploaded by

Rica Regoris
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Cause: De- europeanization

Examples:
1. In a conspiratorial discussion between two Dominican friars, Rizal has older one say: “Temo que
no estemos empezando a’ bajar: Quos vult perdere Jupiter dementat prius” or “I fear lest we
may be beginning to decline. Whom Jupiter wishes to destroy he first makes mad.” Guerrero
eliminated both and translated it as: “Whom God would destroy, He first makes mad”.

2. Rizal’s striking passage about Father Damaso’s sinister appearance “ os acordareis de uno de
aquellos tres monjes de que habla Heineen sus ‘Dioses en el destierro’, que por el Equinoccio de
Setiembre, alla en Tyrol pasaban a media noche en barco un lago, y cada vez depositaban en la
mano del pobre barquero una moneda de plata, como el hielo fria, que le dejaba lleno de
espanto” and its rough translation is made into “ recalled one of those three monks in the
German story who would cross a Tyrolean lake at midnight , and each time place in the hand of
the terror-stricken boatman a silver coin, cold as ice”.

3. Rizal’s sarcastic use of “ la palanca del mundo” was bleached out the erudite malice. As well as,
Rizal’s descriptions to “medusa” as chief villainess was simply put as Dona Consolacion,
Champollion became the most eminent Egyptologist, wise old man Tasio whom Rizal describes
as a “filoso” became Guerrero’s contextless “scholar” and many others vanished throughout the
translation.

Effect: Guerrero’s approach was to eliminate or naturalize the untranslated tags as well as references to
and quotations from famous European masters but the effect to Rizal’s original piece was far-fetched
from his true intentions. It’s original meaning might be impaired and deteriorated as translations of
these continuous.

To what extent did Leon Ma. Guerrero’s  own inclination affect his translations of Rizal‘s
works?

Knowing the author‘s intent could also possibly affect the way the translations were also written. Noli
me Tangere was written to arouse the feeling of his countrymen and it was written in Spanish because
Rizal did not only ―intend to address the Filipinos but mainly the Spaniards. Leon Ma. Guerrero’s 
own inclination which is target-oriented translation affect his translations of Rizal‘s works. In
fact, Guerrero resist the Spanish colonial power but promotes another colonial power: the
Americans though according to the reading he prided himself as anti-American but his de-
europeanized translation interestingly shows that only the clerical and non noble titles got
translated into their English counterparts. Therefore, I can say that colonialism greatly influences
the way the translations were written. And absence of clarifications and foot notes in translations
loses its core meaning and its cultural identity in which this a lost to modern readers.

In my opinion, erasure and translation of Rizal’s striking and original passages detaches us from what
Rizal initially wanted to mean for us to realize. Maybe we are not all knowledgeable on how to read and
understand the original passages but to discover it lies on our hands rather than to pass such
translations that are far from Rizal’s contextualization ,message and history.

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