71
There are further references to the pernicious effects on moral standards of intransigent attitudinizing: Rosario's prayer beginning «-Señor, Dios mío: ¿por qué antes no sabía mentir y ahora sé?» (479) and Rey's confession in the first letter to his father (493) are two examples.
72
R. Cardona (op. cit., pp. 262-263, no. 19) correctly observes that Pepe «recognizes that he too is responsible for his -and Rosario's- predicament, and at no time does he try to blame his aunt or anyone else for it. This acceptance of responsibility is a rare thing to find in the heroes of realist and naturalist novels of the period and even in more contemporary works by such novelists as Hemingway, Cela, etc., in which heredity, environment, or society -or any combination thereof- is always blamed for the failure of their protagonists. -See note 28 for my comment on Galdós' attitude to this basically Romantic outlook.
73
See R. Cardona's comment that «... in Doña Perfecta the 'violent collision' takes place not only on the abstract plane of ideas but very much on the human plane, between the contradictory impulses in the nature of man (p. 28).
74
R. A. Mazzara's «Some Fresh Perspectivas on Galdós' Doña Perfecta», HBalt, XI (1957), 49-56 goes some way to offer a more balanced judgement of Galdós' achievement. Mazzara does not reveal the degree of conscious ambiguity and irony or suggest reasons for it. He does recognise, as does C. A. Jones (V. note 23 below), that Remedios is «the root of it all». See also Cardona, op. cit., p. 29, who argues that Remedios is «the mainspring that sets into motion the action of the novel».
75
MLR, LIV (1959), 570-573.
76
Cf. A more explicit expression of the catastrophic effects of uncontrolled passion on society in La de Bringas (1884), chapter X: «ofrecerían un curioso registro enciclopédico de esta pasión mujeril, que hace en el mundo más estragos que las revoluciones.»
77
V. also «que no hay para qué analizar ahora» (459) and «pero omitimos lo restante por no ser indispensable para la buena inteligencia de esta relación.» (477) and the extension into the fictional chronicle of the editorial power juxtaposed to the second author`s editing: «Los que nos han transmitido las noticias necesarias a la composición de esta historia, pasan por alto aquel diálogo, sin duda porque fue demasiado secreto. En cuanto a lo que hablaron el ingeniero y Rosarito en la huerta aquella tarde parece evidente que no es digno de mención» (427).
78
L. Spitzer, Linguistics and Literary History (New York, 1962), pp. 41 and 83. For a further discussion of this question see: A. S. Trueblood, «Sobre la selección artística en el Quijote: 'lo que ha dejado de escribir'», NRFH, X (1956), 44-50; B. W. Wardropper, «Don Quijote: Story or History?», MPh, LXIII (1965), 1-11; F. W. Locke, «El Sabio Encantador: The Author of Don Quijote», S, XXIII (1969), 46-61.
79
V. also the ambiguity of proper names: Licurgo > Solon; Suspirillos > Remedios; Caballuco > el centauro > Ramos > Reinaldos; Inocencio > el Penitenciario; Jacinto > Don Nominativo. For a full discussion of perspective and polyonomasia, v. Spitzer, op. cit.
80
One might also argue that Galdós found Romantic philosophical attitudes equally unacceptable. Perhaps the most significant theme in sceptical Romantic literature is the theme of fate or cosmic injustice. The action of Galdós' novels is generated not by fate (Romantic sino) but by recognisable human weaknesses. See Cardona's comment, p. 25, that «Towards the end of this chapter (xi) Pepe realizes that he is the victim of an unknown, invisible and implacable enemy, but he still does not know that he himself has been the architect of the adverse fate that pursues him.» By the end of the novel Pepe has rejected the explanation of 'outside forces' and come to recognise his own moral responsibility. See note 20.