Spanish Realism: Benito Pérez Galdós
ITEM 3: REALISTIC NOVEL. Benito Pérez Galdós
Realism took place in Spain during the second half of the nineteenth century and wasn’t consolidated until the publication of La Fontana de Oro in 1870. It found a number of antecedents in Spain that facilitated its success: translations, the realist tradition of the Golden Age, and customs or pictures from the first half of the century. It is characterized by:
- Interest in reality, strict observation of life, and documentation.
- Custom painting. In the major novelists, there is a large fresco of the reality of the time, which produced a boom in the regional novel in which each author portrays their environments. (Clarín – Asturias)
- Painting of characters. Many novels focus on a character whose behavior and motivation we study (psychological novel).
- Social or moral purpose. Once reality is observed, it is logical to expect a critical attitude towards its ills and a denunciation of their causes. This “novel theory” divided Spanish authors into two groups: those who believed that the cause of all evils in modern society was tradition and suggested a recovery of traditional values, and those who believed that the traditional society prevented the ideals of progress and freedom from achieving final victory.
- Ideal for objectivity. Once this phase of good and bad novels is over, the novelist wants to appear as a simple reporter who only shares what he sees or what he has been told. But the author is omniscient and is present in personal reflections and comments on the actions of their characters.
- Progressive replacement of the rhetoric of the romantics and the detailed description of characters and environments.
- Contemporary themes such as the problems of the urban middle classes.
At some point, these features were radicalized in the so-called naturalism. According to Zola, its creator, man was motivated by the weight of the circumstances that surround him. Therefore, meticulously describing these conditions may explain the behavior of the characters. And that’s what the naturalists do. Its distinctive characters are those in which the influence of circumstances is most evident: morons, alcoholics… You cannot fight the dependence of humans on environmental circumstances, but you can change these circumstances. It is necessary to fight against unjust social organization, which led many of these writers to political activity. In Spain, Pardo Bazán introduced the theory of realism with a series of articles in which he adapts it to Spain. Main Spanish realists:
Prereality: (Fernán Caballero), P.A. Alarcón
Realism: 1870 (La Fontana de Oro): Valera, Pereda, Palacio Valdés, Galdós, Clarín
Spanish Naturalism (1880) and Idealistic Reaction (1890): Galdós, Clarín, P. Bazán, B. Ibáñez.
Benito Pérez Galdós
Born in the Canary Islands in 1843, Benito Pérez Galdós went to study law in Madrid and stayed in the city for the rest of his life, to the point of being the quintessential Madrid novelist. His oeuvre includes novels, short stories, articles… but the most characteristic is the production of novels, which he divided into:
NATIONAL EPISODES:
46 novels present a vision of the nineteenth century, achieving a perfect balance between the historical and the romantic. The first two sets of 10 pick up the War of Independence and the reign of Fernando VII. In these series are the most memorable titles: Trafalgar, Zaragoza, Gerona… Many years later, Galdós resumed his work with series on Elizabeth II, the Carlist Wars, the revolutionary six-year period, and the Restoration of Alfonso XII.
SPANISH NOVELS OF THE FIRST TIME:
Composed until 1880. With the first, La Fontana de Oro, set in the early years of the nineteenth century, the realist novel begins in Spain. Novels such as Gloria are “thesis novels” in which opposite conceptions of life face each other: freedom and darkness, progress and stagnation… Its purpose is to attack intransigence and fanaticism, Galdós’ ideological partners in traditionalism.
CONTEMPORARY SPANISH NOVELS:
These are the 24 novels he published from 1881. They are divided into two groups: the first with naturalistic features, including some such as Miau and Torment or his masterpiece, Fortunata y Jacinta.
The action slows down, the characters, their concerns, and their thoughts are becoming more important. Madrid is portrayed in all its facets of the time; the impression is one of life and truth, achieved by his great ability to describe his characters, to reflect their speech and thoughts through interior monologue. His style is spontaneous and expressive prose. In a second phase, from 1890, an inclination towards spiritual problems (defiance to society) can be seen in Galdós. The Spanish problem is now presented in terms of sentiment, and Galdós finds that these conditions are not sufficient to explain human actions. More than a break with naturalism, it is a slow overcoming of it, as seen in Nazario, Angel Guerra, or the Torquemada novels.