Literature (and History) and GALDóS

Lukacs: “To illustrate moral issues, therefore, the novelist may invent plausible potentialities; this the historian cannot do.”
---Soldados de Salamina a clear example of this

Ribbans: “One should not look in a historical novel for a documentary contribution to historical knowledge.”
---Maybe, but then why do so many histories cite passages of Galdos novels?

Hayden White: If “what was at issue throughout the 19th century, in history as in both art and the social sciences, was the form that a genuinely ‘realistic representation of historical reality’ ought to take’, White claims that, for historians as well as novelists, there is no certain scientific or objective proof of superiority of one response over another.”
---Historical knowledge as a construction as much of the imagination as of thought and that its authority is no greater than the power of the historian to persuade his readers that his account is true.

“Brook Thomas comments ironically, ‘World History confirmed God’s will to have a higher state of civilization progressively emerge in Europe’.”

Menéndez Pelayo on Galdós: “Sin ser historiador de profesión, ha reunido el más copioso archive de documentos sobre la vida moral de España en el siglo XIX.”

In his first historical novel, Galdós sees a continual line between the 1812 Cádiz Constitution to the 1820-1823 ‘trienio constitucional’ and ‘la crisis actual’ of 1868-1870, when Prim was searching for a suitable constitutional monarch. Advocates to his liberal contemporaries caution, moderation and unity in order to avoid mistakes of predecessors.
---Prim was assassinated in 1870

3800 imaginary characters in his novels, about 6% recurring ones

In broad terms, he subscribed to the Hegelian or realist concept of history characteristic of the 19th century; seeks ‘the recorded past’ and participates in the ‘rage for a realistic apprehension of the world’ (Hayden White); like the tree metaphor.
---deviations in his obsession with the historia chica
---intrahistoria
---Aware of the precariousness of his information (gaps in narrative, retelling of stories different than his, holes in information)
---Role of chance in shaping history

Once he has returned to the episodios in 1898, no longer easy solutions to Spain’s problems; almost an esperpento, bloodbath, constant conflict, struggle to balance progress and stability

***General lessons to be learned:
Disgust at intrigue and capricious government, loathing of instinctive recourse to violence, distrust of heroic rhetoric and foreign adventures, apprehension about popular uprisings, ironic contempt for bureaucracy, despair at the neglect of education, concern for innocent victims (often women), approval of free and honest personal relations.
-critics claim that his historical perspective in certain areas, econ, working class, regionalism, are lacking
---La de Bringas is an essay on credit consumerism capitalism free market values and the Spanish crown's bankruptcy

Difference bt Episodios nacionales y novelas contemporaneas:
1) Galdos named them this way as such (and even packaged the episodios in yellow and red)
2) Practical working out of national problem, not philosophical-religious theorizing
3) Content dominated, not as interested in the form/style
4) Quantity of Historical knowledge necessary in episodios is greater
5) Titles of episodios refer to historical event, date or person; novelas, minus one exception, do not
6) A major historical development or figure is shown in action in every episodio
7) Lukács: “Necessary Anachronism”
8) Didactic purposes
9) Formal framework: 10 vol. Series unit, progressive sequence of time, prescribed quantitative limitations (?), 85000 words, 30 chapters
10) Narrative Structure: Autobiography, 3rd person, mixed technique
11) Time-scale: Episodios up to 60 years difference; Novelas 6 years
12) Free Indirect Discourse, and character contamination of narration (ideas and vocab enter into the narration)

Historian’s task is not futile: “it is complex, incomplete, and inexhaustible”

Since the future is predetermined in his novels, Galdós is trapped in a rigid deterministic pattern.

Takes particular trouble to construct characters who offer a broad spectrum of opinions from the contemporary scene, and possibilities of outcomes are explored before the expected one arrives. Open-mindedness and reader-response; I’d even say in España sin rey, if you didn’t know the history of Spain well, would you know who is chosen King? And would it matter? Are you more interested in the history outcome or the outcome between Fernanda, DJ and Céfora?
---Take España sin rey as an example; there is much dialogue, discussion and debate over who will be the next King of Spain: Carlos VII, a foreign king, Alfonso XII, etc…etc…we even get a close perspective of los carlistas and the main reason, at least in this narrative, for their failure to put Carlos in the throne (lack of $$$; put into a difficult situation with the constitution)

Galdós on episodios: “el género novelesco con base histórica”

Doña Perfecta (1876)
-First novela contemporánea, de la primera época
-which means: Clear-cut confrontation between two political attitudes representing traditional Catholic values and Modern liberalism; imaginary, provincial setting (Orbajosa) and an unspecified time of action (although it can be deduced rather easily)
- Moderate use of standard form of the traditional novel, the epistolary mode, as in the letters by Don Cayetano which conclude the novel

España sin rey (1908)
-Ribbans quotes the first page of this book as proof of the further justification of unrecorded or overlooked personal events –authentic or fictional—which form part of the totality of history
-Representation of la historia pequeña o la historia chica with the metaphor of the tree and its associations with steady organic growth to designate the fictional stories of obscure individuals
-Anonymous personal narrator
-Novel ends with murder of Céfora by Fernanda, guardia civil comes, theater dialogue with acotaciones: Ribbans calls it ‘pseudo-dramatic dialogue’
-Wayward traditionalist Tapia declares the Progressives would disappear without Prim

Prim not presented directly, but rather mentioned by characters in the episodio
-Most pressing complex problem facing Prim was the ? of succession
-Carlos VII el niño terso (smooth boy)
-This novel deals with the dangerous time, ‘la maldita Interinidad’, before the new choice for Monarch is made
-Prim’s murder anticipated
-Much of book centered on absurdist Carlist figure Don Wifredo de Romarete, Bailío de Nueve Villas and Caballero de San Juan, from Ultra-Traditionalist Vitoria, and reflects the naïve, anachronistic, optimistic claims of Carlist legitimacy. Identified with Don Quijote, idealistic integrity and sympathy as well as unpractical (amorous weapons of ’43); we see the Cortés through him; Dios en el Sinaí speech by Castelar, overwhelms and dazzles his opponents, including Wifredo, who is disillusioned by this and the love affair of DJ and Céfora, engages in drunken orgy, goes crazy, distorts Castelar’s speech while drunk
-Carolina embodies the flexible go with the flow position, at least whichever flow will coincide with your personal interests: she reminisces about her time as camarista for dona Francisca, and loses her property rights during the Revolution, but regains them when restored by Serrano’s gov, accepts Bourbon restoration of Alfonso XII.

Cánovas the leader of the alfonsinos and his powerful influence, behind the scenes, loss of revolutionary zeal and inexorable progress towards Restauración.
-“Esperamos, y esperando hacemos la Historia de España”

DJ Urries does not have much depth of character, due role as donjuan and political intriguer, when he betrays Fernanda he is betraying the unspoilt values of the country.

-Echegaray, using science vocab in his speeches, will win the Nobel Prize for literature in 1904; ‘lastima q no sea usted dramaturgo’



La de Bringas (1884)
-Narrator has an ironic role, unobtrusive but highly significant intervention (he becomes the one who divides and hands out all of the goods of the Royal family, in the final few pages no clear resolution but does tell us that Rosalía will take care of the family after they’ve left the Palacio Real)
-Example of historical incident which forms part of flow of narration and impinges on fictional characters, Los Bringases involved in the fall of Isabella II within the Palacio Real
-Also an example of resemblance bt a fictional character and an eminent historical figure: Bringas is consistently and ironically identified with the French economist and statesman Thiers
-Set toward the end of Isabella II’s reign, and her indiscriminate charitable instincts are used for a fictional purpose: serve as the last recourse for financial assistance for those in her service.
-When Rosalía has a new shawl, she tells her husband that it was generously given to her by Isabella II. She uses her generosity as a way to avoid consequences of her extravagance. When her financial despair has reached critical level, the Señora’s absence has a disastrous effect: she tells how usually Isabella II will help out her friends if you throw yourself at her feet and beg a little bit and cry.
-Milagros: cunning, insinuating, hypocritical, Rosalía’s role model
*-We come near to the queen is the dinner served to the poor after the traditional ceremony of washing their feet. A good example of Hayden White’s Emplotment!!! Viewed a distance from a distorted angle, gives Isabelita Bringas nightmares, seen through the eyes of the children, grotesque parody relieved by Isabelita, the royal part being played by her mother accompanied by Pez (who she cheats on her husband with); identification of Rosalía and Isabella II, each of them adulteresses.
-Galdós does not disguise his disgust for this travesty of charity: calls it ‘comedia palaciega’ that has nothing to do with the Evangelical. Spectators are noisy, poor women hardly eat anything as they are bewildered and shamed, food packed up to be later resold at boarding houses. Another example of unthinking charity. Farce
-Shadows of forthcoming upheaval are everywhere in evidence in La de Bringas
-Caballero’s immoral decision to take Amparo as his mistress and live with her in France a confirmation of the widespread moral and political disorder: “La revolución no tarda; vendrá el despojo de los ricos, el ateísmo, el amor libre.”
*The whole action of the novel, more or less, is confined to the Palacio Real, its own little city, metonymic fashion as a microcosm of Spanish society on the verge of Revolution.
-Thiers prominent in the revolutionary situation, the collapse of the 3rd Empire; Bringas is el ratoncito Pérez, obsession with hoarding recalls the classic miser is the reverse of the dynamics of capitalism; ‘dinero en manos muertas’
-Pez is the mechanism through which politics is explored for most part: is first neutral, makes sure not to upset Bringas with the inevitable coming of the Revolution, sympathizes with the expulsed generals of Unión Liberal
-Bringases rejoice at the forceful sign of government; bodily reaction to the Navy uprising; Bringas blames Prim for the revolution, and rejoices at a false rumor of his death (pseudo-prolepsis)
-Dona Candida says Queen only needs to show up in Madrid to squash the uprising
*-Consistent, meticulous use of historical detail not required; rather it offers the effects of the crumbling of a style of life, the end of a dynasty and a system, with 2 reactions presented: 1) Bringas’ apocalyptic conviction that all traditional values are irreparably lost, 2) Cynical, accommodating view of Rosalia and Pez, who are confident in facing the unknown, things won’t change that much, Pez nicely situated with revolutionary friends
-Surprisingly peaceful transfer of the building; although fearful of the revolutionaries, are meek and the new administrator (the narrator) is very accommodating to his friends
-Bly: La de Bringas is 1/4th historical novel and 3/4th socio-psychological novel
: “I think that it is not inappropriate to assert that the story of Rosalia and Francisco can be construed as an allegory, or a metaphor, on the decline and fall of the House of Bourbon.”

Reign of Isabella II 1843-1868
Daughter of Ferdinand VII and María Cristina. Father died when she was 3. Took throne. Ferdinand VII’s brother, Carlos V, and his supporters rose up in arms, first Carlista Wars. María Cristina abdicated in 1840. Espartero falls in ’43, Isabella 13 and declared Queen by Narvaez and O' Donnell.