81
Several critics have remarked on some of these parallels. J. Chalmers Herman, Don Quijote and the Novels of Pérez Galdós (Ada, Oklahoma: East Central Oklahoma State College, 1955), briefly discusses Viera's quijotismo (pp. 30-31), and observes that: «The letters that Manuel Infante and Equis write to each other in La incógnita recall at times the verbal exchanges between Don Quijote and his Squire. This is especially true in the very last missive in which Equis calls upon his friend to believe the incredible just as Sancho and Don Quijote invoke the credulity of each other...» (p. 44). Monroe Z. Hafter, «Ironic Reprise in Galdós' Novels», PMLA, 76 (1961), 233-239, describes Viera and Orozco as similar quixotic figures (p. 238).
And finally, Gullón, op. cit., lists Viera as a quixotic character (p. 58). I might add that the characterization of Infante and Equis in the account of the magical self-structuring of Realidad brings to mind Cide Hamete, the fictitious chronicler, who, although he has the magical power to reveal the most hidden thoughts (Quijote, Part II, Chapter 40), also has the limitation of occasionally being unreliable (Part I, Chapter 9; and Part II, Chapter 3): Infante is a fictitious author and frequently unreliable narrator; Infante, believing Equis to be the author of the manuscript, attributes to him «un poder de adivinación» to «ver la cara interior de los hechos humanos» (p. 786). This account, then, functions as a preamble to the parallels between Realidad and the Quijote.
82
It is interesting to note that Don Quijote's virtuousness is not unambiguous; see the polemical articles of A. A. Parker, «Don Quixote and the Relativity of Truth», The Dublin Review, 44 (1947), 28-37; Helmut A. Hatzfeld, «¿Don Quijote asceta?», NRFH, 2 (1948), 57-70; and Amado Alonso, «Don Quijote no asceta, pero ejemplar caballero y cristiano», NRFH, 2 (1948), 333-359, rpt. in Materia y forma en poesía, pp. 159-200.
83
See P. N. Dunn's seminal essay «Honour and the Christian Background in Calderón», BHS, 37 (1960), 75-105, rpf. in Critical Essays on the Theatre of Calderón, ed. Bruce W. Wardropper (New York: New York Univ. Press, 1965), pp. 24-60. Also see his «Patrimonio del alma», BHS, 41 (1964), 78-85.
84
«Forma literaria y sensibilidad social en La incógnita y Realidad», RHM, 30 (1964), 89-107.
85
«Ana Karénina y Realidad», BH, 39 (1937), 375-396, rpt. in his Estudios de literatura española, 2nd ed. (Madrid: Gredos, 1967), pp. 179-201.
86
«The Christ Figure in Misericordia», AG, 2 (1967), 103-130. Also see J. E. Varey, «Charity in Misericordia», in Galdós Studies I, ed. J. E. Varey (London: Tamesis, 1970), pp. 164-194.
87
I am grateful to Professors Rodolfo Cardona and Paul R. Olson for reading an earlier version of this paper and encouraging me to revise it for publication.
88
Vida y obra de Galdós, Madrid, Gredos, 1951, p. 121.
89
Pérez Galdós Spanish Liberal Crusader, Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1948, p. 225.
Un buen resumen de los encontrados pareceres que el drama suscitó, puede verse en Berkowitz, pp. 245-261. La disensión del protagonista respecto de modelos tradicionales fue el motivo principal del rechazo de la obra por algunos: «There were scattered objections to the hero's non-Spanish attitude toward conjugal honor» (p. 251). «No red-blooded Spaniard [afirmaban los detractores] could accept so anti-national a solution of adultery» (p. 255).
Esa extraña actitud del protagonista -supuestamente no española- dio pie a críticos como Portnoff o Balseiro para hablar del influjo sobre Galdós de Ana Karénina de Tolstoi. Joaquín Casalduero -«Ana Karénina y Realidad», Bulletin Hispanique, 39 (1937)- niega que exista tal influjo.
90
Véase Arnold M. Penuel, «The Ambiguity of Orozco's Virtue in Galdós' La incógnita and Realidad», Hispania, 53 (1970), donde se revisan distintas opiniones sobre el tema.