51
«El autor de bucólica» en ibid., p. 107.
52
De ahí que haya podido decir José F. Montesinos: «Una inmensa nostalgia de lo pasado armoniza los artículos de escritores de las más opuestas tendencias», op. cit., p. 120.
53
G. Ribbans, AG, 111 (1968), 164.
54
«Galdós' Early Novels and the Segunda Manera: A Case for a Total View», in Renaissance and Modem Studies, XV (1971), 44-62.
55
Observaciones sobre la novela contemporánea en España first published in Revista de España, XV (1870) and reproduced in Benito Pérez Galdós: Madrid, ed. José Pérez Vidal (Madrid, 1957). References are to this edition.
56
«The question of morality is a prominent issue around 1875. The critics align themselves on two opposite sides. Some believe in teaching morality by praising virtue and condemning vice. This attitude is a continuation of the reactionary sentiments of the preceding decades. The opposition to this group is led by the partisans of «art for art's sake.» Morality thus becomes a question from the standpoint of aesthetics». H. Eoff, «The Spanish Novel of 'Ideas': Critical Opinion» PMLA, LV (1940), 531-558.
57
V. M. I. Gerhardt, Don Quijote, la vie et les livres (Amsterdam, 1955), pp. 9-18 who offers a sensitive critique of this problem.
58
Don Quijote, II, 40, p. 1363, ed. J. García Soriano and J. García Morales (Madrid, 1949).
59
W. T. Pattison, Galdós and the Creative Process (Minneapolis, 1954), p. 117. V. also A. del Río who seems to suggest that the characters of the early novels are mere allegorical figures or representatives of ideological attitudes, Estudios galdosianos (Zaragoza, 1953), p. 16. G. A. Davies' «Galdós' El amigo Manso: An Experiment in Didactic Method», BHS, XXXIX (1962), 16-30 argues for «a second manner» and marks El amigo Manso as the clearest example of a new form of didacticism infinitely superior to that of Doña Perfecta. The present essay is concerned to challenge the assumptions explicit in Davies' statement that «It is Doña Perfecta (1876) that best represents in its extreme form the method of the early period, since we find that the characters... are largely motivated and informed by the ideological content of the novel... The action... is conceived as a battle between opposing forces painted broadly in black and white,... Orbajosa's ordered social hierarchy is delineated because it provides grist for the ideological mill, driving power for the conflict, not because it has in itself any great interest for Galdós (16). A similar objection to Miss Jennifer Lowe's comment that «The conflict between... enlightened progressive thought and reactionary obscurantism is presented in terms of a struggle between life and death, light and darkness»- (AG, IV, (1969), 53) must be made on the grounds that while the imagery might be used in the fashion she describes, much of it is coincidental or necessary for the plot (Pepe is not likely to be killed in broad daylight!) and no recognition of the subtlety or the heavy-handedness of Galdós' irony is made.
60
V. L. Alas' review of Gloria, O. C., I (Madrid, 1912), p. 41; M. de la Revilla, «Revista crítica», Revista contemporánea, IV (1876); VII (1877); IX (1877); XIX (1879); A. Palacio Valdés, «Los novelistas españoles: Don Benito Pérez Galdós», Revista europea, XI (1878). These liberal attitudes should be compared with Pereda's reaction in the letters of 17 February and 14 March 1877. Ángel del Río is among the few modem critics who have recognised Galdós' conciliatory mood in the early novels, V. Historia de la literatura española (New York, 1948), p. 145.