141
Various of the parodied Cervantine characters and forms are noted by Raphaël, 14-15, 20; Gullón, 14-15; Sánchez, 115; Emilio Miró, «Tristana o la imposibilidad de ser», Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, 250-52 (1970-71), 508; Leon Livingstone, «The Law of Nature and Women's Liberation in Tristana», Anales Galdosianos, 7 (1972), p. 100, n. 5.
142
The first critic to read the novel in this light was Emilia Pardo Bazán, who wrote in 1892 that the novel offered an embrionic sketch of a feminist theme «pero imperfectamente desarrollado» in a hasty conclusion while Galdós was preoccupied with other projects. «Tristana», Nuevo Teatro Crítico (April, 1892), 76-90; rpt. Obras completas, III, ed. Harry L. Kirby, jr. (Madrid: Aguilar, 1973), p. 1120. Among the other critics who have analyzed Tristana as a comment upon the issue of feminism from one perspective or another are: Joaquín Casalduero, Vida y obra de Galdós (1843-1920), 4th ed. (Madrid: Gredos, pp. 104-108); Emilio Miró, op. cit.; Leon Livingstone, op. cit.; Ruth A. Schmidt, «Tristana and the Importance of Opportunity», Anales Galdosianos, 9 (1974), 135-144; John H. Sinnigen, «Resistance and Rebellion in Tristana», Modern Language Notes, 91 (1976), 277-291.
143
The relationship between Galdós and Concha-Ruth Morell was first described by A. F. Lambert in his article, «Galdós and Concha-Ruth Morell», Anales Galdosianos, 8 (1973), 33-49. Two years later, Gilbert Smith published part of the correspondence from «Tristona» to «Señó Juan» in which parallels between their relationship and Tristana are clearly recognizable. «Galdós's Tristana and Letters from Concha-Ruth Morell», Anales Galdosianos, 10 (1975), 91-120. Referring to the realistic portrayal of the interchanges between Tristana and Horacio, Gonzalo Sobejano had previously observed that «sólo en algunas narraciones de Emilia Pardo Bazán (Insolación, Morriña) se da algo parecido a lo que Galdós supo hacer», «Galdós y el vocabulario de los amantes», Anales Galdosianos, 1 (1966), p. 86, concluding that she had learned it from Galdós himself. Carmen Bravo-Villasante later argued from Pardo Bazán's letters to Galdós that the influence was at least reciprocal and that he had drawn upon her correspondence in composing Tristana. Vida y obra de Emilia Pardo Bazán (Madrid: Editorial Magisterio Español, 1973), p. 153. In that light, Pardo Bazán's curious novel, Memorias de un solterón, published four years after Tristana in 1896, may be read as an internovel dialogue with Galdós' work. The later book narrates the attempt by an ambitious young woman to establish an independent career before circumstances finally compel her to marry. As interesting as any of the biographical data may be, it is of little use in our criticism of Tristana as a work of art, although it does suggest the possibility of yet another, private level of irony from the perspective of the author's privileged knowledge. If, however, we intend to analyze the novel as a tract regarding the situation of women, the letters are of obvious value in determining Galdós's intention.
144
Intertextual reference is a constant throughout Galdós's work, and the allusion to Calderón is not unique to Tristana. The Calderonian honor code normany served him as a device by which to dramatize the conflict between a stifling, anachronistic tradition and the demands of the present. See Gustavo Correa, «Pérez Galdós y la tradición calderoniana», Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, 250-52 (1970-71), 221-241.
145
Julián Marías, «Tristana y don Lope», Gaceta Ilustrada, 29 Mar. 1970, p. 6.
146
Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), p. 239.
147
Frye, p. 285.
148
As has been noted by Francisco Ayala, the «diálogo con el lector» implicit in a narrator's direct aside transforms the reader himself into a participant within the frame of the text. Op. cit., P. 10.
149
Tristana's assimilation of don Lope's values continues the novel's systematic inversion of role and ideology. Galdós creates a version of the don Juan myth in which the doña Inés figure echoes her seductor's disdain of marriage: «¿No te parece a ti que lo que dice del matrimonio es la pura razón?» (p. 357). Don Lope, the «Tenorio arrumado» (p. 383), models himself as Tristana's defender and ends up winning over Horacio (p. 410), a supposedly more legitimate pretender, who nevertheless guiltily sees in his lover «la legítima esposa del respetable y gallardo caballero...» (p. 371). There is no moral compass pointing to a true north in the novel.
150
Diane Urey comments upon Galdós' use of the same technique in several other of the «novelas contemporáneas» in her perceptive study of ironic rhetoric: «The character is composed of literary and cultural codes with which the reader is familiar. Frequently this conventional knowledge is ironically reversed so that the information with which the reader makes the portrait intelligible must be re-evaluated. The reader's own values will inevitably be effected by the critical imperative which results from such an ironic vision». Galdós and the Language of Irony (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1982), p. 46.