Disrupting the Realist Nation: The Forest as Radical Illegibility in the Novels of Jose Rizal

• Main Author: Diaz, Glenn L
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2023
• Subjects: Jose Rizal; spatio-poetics; forest; Philippine literature; empire; Arts and Humanities; South and Southeast Asian Languages and Societies
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/english-faculty-pubs/203; https://doi.org/10.20495/seas.12.2_213
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

The matter of geography does not seem to register in the predominant readings of the works of the nineteenth-century Filipino writer Jose Rizal, most of which privilege a framework built around nationalism. In this article, I consider how the forest as a narrative space and conceptual trope—or “for...