Speaking about the historical and fictional orientation of the «Fourth Series», Antonio Regalado observes that Galdós «al tener que hacer la historia del reinado de Isabel II, llega a identificar completamente la vida privada, tradicionalmente reservada a la novela, con los hechos públicos, que se consideran material propio de la historia. La razón es que lo verdadero histórico y real, que es la vida de la nación en su evolución como colectividad, se puede encontrar concentrado en el microcosmos de la vida individual, siendo ésta, en consecuencia, una diminuta imagen de la colectividad». Benito Pérez Galdós y la novela histórica española, 1868-1912 (Madrid, 1966), p. 359. (N. del A.)

See Sara E. Schyfter, «Christians, Jews and Moors: Galdós' Search for Values in 'Aita Tettauen' and 'Carlos VI en la Rápita'», in The Jew in the Novels of Benito Pérez Galdós (London: Tamesis, 1978), pp. 101-116. (N. del A.)

The Juana play must be seen as a historical discourse. As such, it contains between it an implied, if not conscious philosophy of history. See Hayden White, Metahistory: the Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Baltimore: John Hopkins, 1973), for a discussion on how all history is a poetic act. Although he deals with «history» and not with historical drama or narrative, his views are equally useful for the latter. Galdós' «emplotment» of Juana reveals, therefore, his view of history as much as would any traditional historical account. (N. del A.)

Rodolfo Cardona, «Fuentes históricas de 'Santa Juana de Castilla'», in Actas..., p. 4. (N. del A.)

Galdós' inferred perspective in this play is that the use of «madness» as a label is a political weapon with which to incarcerate someone for reasons of state. Similar accusations have been levelled against Russia in our own time. Someone who does not «go along» with established policy is conveniently called mad and imprisoned. This, according to Galdós, is exactly what happened to Juana de Castilla, who, far from being mad, was simply an Erasmista. (N. del A.)

See Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (New York: Free Press, 1964). Also R. Heart, «Scott's Endings: the Fictions of Authority», Narrative Endings: a Special of Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 33 (1979), 48-68. (N. del A.)

Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization (New York: Vintage Books, 1973), p. 27. (N. del A.)

Juana is also doomed to silence. Her entrapment in her own fictions makes of her a «mad woman», a being who is blind to her own meaning and thus is unable to use language. See Shoshana Felman, «Madness and Philosophy, or Literature's Reason», Yale French Studies, 52 (1975): 215-28. (N. del A.)

All citations are taken from Obras Completas (Madrid: Aguilar, 1968), vol. VI; page references are given in parenthesis within the text. (N. del A.)

Nietzsche states that «only by means of forgetfulness can man ever arrive at imagining that he possesses 'truth'... If he does not mean to content himself with truth in the shade of tautology, that is, with empty husks, he will always obtain illusions instead of truth», «On truth and falsity in their ultramoral sense», The Complete Works of Nietzsche, ed. Oscar Levy (New York: Russell & Russell, 1964), vol. II, p. 177. (N. del A.)