91
«Galdós, The Madrid Royal Palace and the September 1868 Revolution», Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, 5 (1980), 1-17, and «From Disorder to Order; The Pattern of arreglar References in Galdós' Tormento and La de Bringas», Neophil, 62 (1978), 392-405.
92
The Novelistic Art of Galdós, vol. 2 (Valencia: Ed. Albatros Hispanófila, 1980), especially Chapter 12, «La de Bringas 1884», pp. 223-33.
93
See his introduction to La de Bringas (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1967), pp. 1-26, and Galdós, novelista moderno (Madrid: Ed. Gredos, 1966), pp. 79-87. All citations to La de Bringas will be from the Premice Hall edition and will be parenthetically inserted in the text.
94
La de Bringas is especially open to this reading, Peter Bly reminds us, for two reasons: first, because the setting of the novel is the Madrid Royal Palace and, second, because events of the period between February and September, 1868 comprise the last critical months of the reign of Isabel II. «Galdós, The Madrid Royal Palace and the September 1868 Revolution», page 2.
95
Varey interprets the novel as a show of struggle between two opposed attitudes towards capital. «Francisco Bringas: nuestro buen Thiers», Anales Galdosianos, 1 (1966), 63-69.
96
Galdós, Vol. 2 (Madrid: Castalia, 1969), especially Chapter 2 «Las novelas de locura crematística», pp. 120-52. Galdós, says Montesinos, exposes with great clarity «aspectos esenciales de la España desustanciada de Isabel II, conducentes a esa caquexia moral que tanto le preocupa» (p. 145).
97
Jennifer Lowe is one of few critics who does net neglect the psychological development of the novel's characters. She underplays Rosalía's obsession with luxury and recommends we see the episodes as a series of temptations («Galdós' Presentation of Rosalía in La de Bringas, Hispanófila, 50 (1974), 49-65. Temptation, according to Lowe, is what humanizes Rosalía: «Galdós is concerned with far more than Rosalía's love of clothes, for he is trying to convey what constitutes the greatest temptation for her. She, human that she is, succumbs to temptation and the particular form that tempration takes in her case is luxurious clothes. Unless we appreciate this emphasis the story will make little impact on us» (p. 51). Although Lowe's portrait of Rosalía is somewhat overly sympathetic, she does point out characteristies (for example, wifely affection and procrastination) which have been largely overlooked by others.
98
It should be mentioned that this reading of La de Bringas is suggested by William Shoemaker, although in his analysis he does not discuss it at any length. Unlike other of Galdós' novels about women, notes Shoemaker, the title of La de Bringas specifies a relationship: «that Rosalía is Bringas' wife, i.e. her marital status, the heart of her moral and social condition and of her 'fall'». The Novelistic Art of Galdós, p. 231.
99
Galdós, novelista moderno, pp. 80-82.
100
Galdós, Vol. 2, p. 129.