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101

In the Grail legend, the wound received by the Fisher King through the loins not only maims him but also makes his kingdom a wasteland until such time as an unknown saviour (Perceval/Parzival) will come to eliminate the curse. Wagner was planning his Parsifal opera while still composing Tristan und Isolde. On the fascinating connection he saw between the two legends, see Zuckerman (25).

 

102

In her letter to Horacio, Tristana declares that a woman «no puede nombrar decorosamente, delante de un hombre, otras partes del cuerpo que la cara y las manos», but she goes on to say that the pain is in her leg and identifies the particular spot: «Junto a la rodilla, do existe aquel lunar...» (1585). On the sexualization of limbs in Victorian literature, see the discussion by Wright («Corporal Fragmentation» 152-53). The onset of the illness that Wright plausibly identifies as melanoma is signalled by the appearance of a birthmark, which recalls in a curious way at least two medieval works in which a birthmark is related to a love affair. In Diarmaid and Gráinne, an Irish analogue of the Tristan legend, Diarmaid has a beauty mark that causes women to fall in love with him. Gráinne, the young wife of Diarmaid's uncle, becomes enamoured and casts a spell which obliges him to kidnap her. In a later work, Jean Renart's Roman de la Rose ou Guillaume de Dole (ca. 1228), the heroine Lienor has on her thigh a rose-shaped beauty mark that plays a crucial, though very different, role in the love intrigue.

 

103

Don Lope even usurps Tristana's place, in the sense that he takes over her correspondence with Horacio following Horacio's marriage: he reads the letters to Tristana and answers them (1609).

 

104

I am thinking particularly of Horacio's reticence regarding Tristana's aspirations, but Livingstone, who sees the novel's conclusion as positive, argues that Galdós intended to show that women's liberation should not violate the «law of Nature»: «Feminine liberty does not extend to an inversion of the relations between the sexes with the creation of male women, nor does it condone the flouting of social conventions which serve to unite» (99).

 

105

With a bizarre kind of machismo Tournier advances a theory that he knows will be inimical to feminists.

 

106

A modern edition of the Libro was published by Bonilla y San Martín, but none exists of the Corónica. On the Tristan legend in medieval Spanish literature, see Entwistle's classic study and the concise summary in Shatter (Critical Bibliography 25-32).

 

107

This is all the more likely, given the rapturous assessment of Wagner's genius made by Galdós's friend, Pardo Bazán, in her 1899 article (55-56). But actual evidence of Galdós's knowledge of the Tristan opera is hard to locate. It does not appear in Berkowitz's inventory of the books contained in Galdós's library, although there are works on other Wagner operas and on Wagnerian drama generally. Tristan und Isolde is not among the operas Galdós reviewed for La Nación, and in any case, although several of Wagner's operas were performed in Spain in the last two decades of the nineteenth century (according to the Annals of Opera), Tristan was not performed in Barcelona until 1899, and its Madrid premiere was not until 1911. On the other hand, the most complete edition of Wagner's poems (including the Tristan) was published in Barcelona as early as 1885. Evidence of interest around the turn of the century in Wagner's use of medieval legends is indicated by the publication of Bonilla y San Martín's book describing the sources of Wagner's legends in medieval and Renaissance literature (Las leyendas de Wagner).

 

108

On this last occasion Víctor puts on both his slippers and his tasselled cap as he relaxes in the company of his wife, Álvaro Mesía, Paco and Joaquín. Significantly, Álvaro, whose seduction of Victor's wife will not now be long delayed, «fumaba, apoyando un codo muy cerca de los de Anita» (2: 431).

 

109

When his status as deceived husband finally emerges, Víctor is presented (with or without a nightcap) as «avergonzado, como si se viera en camisa en medio de la plaza» (2: 502).

 

110

Germán Gullón elaborates on Víctor's behaviour, pointing out the artificial and theatrical nature of his reaction («Visión» 331).

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