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61

Hoar, p. 161. (N. del A.)

 

62

Romance is used in a general sense referring to tales in which union occurs after separation or estrangement of parents from child (foundling romance) or lovers from each other. Chivalric romance and the picaresque are other variants. The latter helps shed light en the nature of romance as a work with a «happy ending», for union here with the estranged beloved is replaced, in a picaresque narrative like the Lazarillo de Tormes, by a marriage in which the protagonist's non-being is manifested, the opposite effect of reunion or recognitions in other types. Galdós seems aware of the contrast in his having made Isidora Rufete, in La desheredada, share in a foundling romance action; and he brings her and her brother to a picaresque end. Furthermore, the relationship of romance to mythological structures, with roots in «normal» universal feelings of orphanhood, is relevant to Galdós' choice of foundling romance as the primary structure in Fortunata y Jacinta, since the great religious and heroic myths appear to have their origins in such a common ground, See Otto Rank, «The Myth of the Birth of the Hero», in The Myth of the Birth of the Hero and Other Writings, ed. Philip Freund (New York: Random House, 1964), pp. 1-96. (N. del A.)

 

63

Benito Pérez Galdós, Fortunata y Jacinta (Madrid: Hernando, 1971), pp. 1030-31. Further references are to this edition. (N. del A.)

 

64

Class is used here without reference to class struggle, a problem that has been examined extensively by, among others, Carlos Blanco Aguinaga («Entrar por el aro: restauración del orden y educación de Fortunata», La historia y el texto literario: Tres novelas de Galdós [Madrid: Nuestra Cultura, 1978], pp. 49-94); Geoffrey Ribbans (Fortunata y Jacinta [London: Grant and Cutler, 1977], pp. 61-70); Julio Rodríguez Puértolas («Fortunata y Jacinta: Anatomía de una sociedad burguesa», in Galdós: Burguesía y revolución [Madrid: Turner, 1975], pp. 13-59); and John N. Sinnigen («Individual, Class and Society in Fortunata y Jacinta», in Galdós Studies, II, ed. Robert J. Weber [London: Tamesis Books, 1974]). Although my observations lend themselves to socio-political interpretation, my interest lies with the individual character's view from within situations and his hope to realize his dreams with others. At the same time, it is not clear that one can derive conclusions such as those presented by Sherman Eoff, The Novels of Pérez Galdós (Saint Louis: Washington University Studies, 1954), pp. 136-37, concerning spiritual and moral growth among the characters. There is too much ambiguity to arrive at such evaluations from within the text. (N. del A.)

 

65

Galdós did not explicitly connect the exposition of the philosophy of the chop (p. 14) to the scene describing the eating of chops by Ido (pp. 159-60). However, the mysterious «unreliable narrator» leaves gaps between related items, thereby allowing the reader to draw conclusions where the narrator cannot make connections without ponderous reflections of a kind that would turn the novel into philosophical essay, treatise on esthetics, etc., that is, anything but a novel. (N. del A.)

 

66

Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist (1837: New York: Bantam Books, 1982), p. 47. There are other similarities, including Dickens' «sacrifice» of Nancy so that Oliver might be restored to the angelic Miss Rose, which was possibly imitated by Galdós in his sacrifice of Fortunata so that the angelic Jacinta might be (re)united with her Pitusín. (N. del A.)

 

67

See studies of El amigo Manso as metanovel, especially those of John Kronik, «El amigo Manso and the Game of Fictive Autonomy», Anales Galdosianos, 12 (1977), 71-94; and Harriet Turner, «The Control of Confusion and Clarity in El amigo Manso», Anales Galdosianos, 15 (1980), 45-61. (N. del A.)

 

68

Although Julio Rodríguez-Puértolas finds parallels with Cervantine characterization, he does not explore the question of romance («Fortunata y Jacinta y la 'Doctrina del error'», in Galdós: Burguesía y revolución, pp. 61-92). (N. del A.)

 

69

On the question of Maxi's impotence, see Vernon A. Chamberlin, «Poor Maxi's Windmill: Aquatic Symbolism in Fortunata y Jacinta», Hispanic Review, 50 (1981), 427-37. (N. del A.)

 

70

The role of the unconscious, spiritualism and iluminismo in the world inhabited by the characters of the novel is more complex than studies indicate, for such concerns extend well beyond the realm of «academic philosophies». Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo's Historia de los heterodoxos españoles, II, III (Madrid: Librería Católica de San José, 1880 and 1881), reveals in what measure the entry of German philosophies into Spain was inextricably tied to associations with iluminismo, quietismo and Asian mysticism (III, 559-85). Maxi's preoccupation with «la emanación de las almas» has been attributed to H. P. Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine by Gustavo Correa, in El simbolismo religioso en las novelas de Pérez Galdós (Madrid: Gredos, 1962), p. 108. (N. del A.)

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