Despite admission of wrongdoing, Pepe concentrates on Perfecta, «la pobre señora, que tiene el feudalismo en la médula de los huesos...» (XXVIII, 287). For a different, almost opposite, interpretation of Pepe in his letters, see Cardona, op. cit., pp. 42-43. One troublesome matter in the finale is that, given the correspondence between Pepe and his father, the latter is, contrary to all verisimilitude, never once mentioned in Cayetano's letters. I have no explanation. (N. del A.)

At the end of most all tragic love stories either the parent or friends or society, within the fictional representation of the case, manage to accept the forbidden love or even cease hostilities. Even the most pessimistic end within the tradition, that of La Celestina, stresses the loss in the words of the father's lament. There is nothing in Doña Perfecta at the end that shows acceptance of the lovers or settling of disputes, or pity at the waste. (N. del A.)

Op. cit., p. 175. And earlier in his «Nota Preliminar»: «La novela tendenciosa siempre me ha parecido mala novela, cualquiera que sea la tendencia, y por ello no me parecen buenas las de Galdós, aunque en ellas ocurran a veces cosas admirables», p. XVII. (My Ital.), Montesino's personal tastes need not interfere with his critical judgment. Cf. my conclusions. (N. del A.)

Cf. Weitz, Philosophy, op. cit., chapter on «Evaluation». (N. del A.)

For a pertinent argument, see Barbara Hardy, The Appropriate Form: An Essay on the Novel (London, 1964), especially Chapter III: «Dogmatic Form...», pp. 51-82. (N. del A.)

See Standish, «Technique», op. cit., for an analysis of the narrator's instrusions. (N. del A.)

There is «dissociation» in the novel because Galdós shows truths against his avowed liberalism, that is, he writes as a liberal but is not blind to errors of liberalism. For a review of the problem, see George Steiner, «Marxism and the Literary Critic», in Sociology of Literature, op. cit., pp. 159-178. Also, in the same issue, articles by Lucien Goldman. J. Rodríguez Puértolas comes to the same conclusion about later novels: «Galdós escribe ya, en Fortunata y Jacinta, de la burguesía, pero en contra de ella», Galdós, Burguesía y Revolución, Turner (Madrid, 1975), p. 92. (N. del A.)

Critics see Galdós' novels as continuing in an evolutionary way without real qualitative breaks in their progress -witness reappearing topics like «myths», «archetypes», «krausismo», «manners», «dreams», «humor», «patterns», «commonplaces», «political commitments», etc. That is, they look for those «motifs», «essences», «constants» and other details in the structure of some novels that can serve as «connecting links» with other novels; surprisingly, they are not as concerned with qualitative breaks, or with radical changes. (N. del A.)

Appraisals through contrast reflect ideological biases, usually those related to «pluralism» and «anatomy of literature». It would be useful to elucidate the various procedures, doctrines, disagreements, and issues of modern Galdosian scholarship as part of the professional machinery of literary criticism and show how some textual facts are selected while others ignored, how some ideas on genres prevail over others, how certain theories are taken for granted while others are debunked. Woodbridge, op. cit., does not attempt such judgments while, with few exceptions, most footnotes in articles about Galdós' works, do not debate issues with other scholars but are instead content to refer to other works or, worse, to accept opinions uncritically. Predictably, on the issue of Doña Perfecta vs. later works, almost all critics agree. The exceptions may be Cardona, Casalduero, and Cardwell (op. cit.). (N. del A.)

Vilar, «Tiempo del Q», op. cit., p. 431. «[...] este libro 'universal', este libre, 'eterno', sigue siendo antes que nada un libro español de 1605, que no cobra todo su sentido más que en el corazón de la historia». (N. del A.)