Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Galdós and the anti-bureaucratic tradition

1976; Liverpool University Press; Volume: 53; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1475382762000353035

1469-3550

Alain Lambert,

Comparative Literary Analysis and Criticism

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image sizeBSS Subject Index: EPISODIOS NACIONALES [B. PÉREZ GALDÓS]GIL Y ZÁRATE, ANTONIO (1793–1861)MESONERO ROMANOS, RAMÓN DE (1803–1882)PÉREZ GALDÓS, BENITO (1843–1920)POLITICS [AS LITERARY, CULTURAL & IDEOLOGICAL THEME]SPAIN — HISTORY — 18th–19th CENTURIES Notes 1. Serious assessment of Mesonero′s work has been hampered in this century by the fact that he provides convenient fodder for facile contrasts with Larra, by his inflated reputation in his own age, and by a perhaps over-enthusiastic detection of plagiarisms from Jouy. It is to be hoped that C. Seco Serrano′s scholarly edition for the Biblioteca de autores españoles, Obras de don Ramón de Mesonero Romanos (Madrid 1967), will now lead to more measured considerations on his place in Spanish literature of the nineteenth century. References to Mesonero′s work are to this edition. 2. J. M. Jover, Introducción a la historia de España (Barcelona 1964). 3. J. F. Montesinos, Costumbrismo y novela (Madrid 1960), 73. 4. See his attacks on Balzac and Hugo in El semanario pintoresco, alleging that their novels are immoral because of the morals described therein, quoted by Montesinos, op. cit., 16. 5. On the relationship between Galdós and Mesonero see Montesinos, op. cit., M. Baquero Goyanes, Perspectivismo y contraste (Madrid 1963), H. Berkowitz, ‘Galdós and Mesonero Romanos’, RR, XXIII (1932), 201–05, and ‘Galdós′ literary apprenticeship’, HR, III (1935), 1–22, and especially Cartas de Pérez Galdós a Mesonero Romanos, ed. E. Varela Hervías (Madrid 1943). 6. Compare the description of a pretendiente in Modesto Lafuente′s Teatro social of 1846: ‘flexibilidad de cintura para doblarse, agilidad de pies para correr, ligereza de brazos para manejar el sombrero, ojo penetrante y avizor …’, quoted in G. Le Gentil, Manuel Bretón de los Herreros et la société espagnole de 1830 à 1860 (Paris 1909), 418. My attention has been drawn to this description of a pretendiente in ‘La ciencia del pretendiente o el arte de obtener empleos’ (Minerva o el Revisor General, July 1817): ‘Tengo la condición más suave, más flexible, y tan elástica como mi cuerpo … mi nariz es admirable … Es indispensable en todo pretendiente la suma ligereza … conviene tener siempre una cara fisueña …’ (Costumbristas españoles, ed. E. Correa Calderón [Madrid 1950], I, 635–38). 7. Montesinos, op. cit., 17. 8. ‘Observaciones sobre la novela contemporánea en España’, Revista de España, XV, núm. 59 (1870), 167. 9. M. Ucelay de Cal, Los españoles pintados por si mismos (México 1951), 143. 10. Antonio Gil de Zárate, 1793–1861, a prolific historical dramatist, journalist and, according to R. Carr, Spain 1808–1939 (Oxford 1966), 237, ‘a civil servant of undoubted liberal sentiments’. This passage, like all the following quotations from Gil de Zárate, can be found in Los españoles pintados por sí mismos (Madrid 1843–1844), 77–103. 11. Compare Antonio Flores on changes of government: ‘en todos los cafés, en todos los círculos y en todas las casas no se habla de otra cosa que del nuevo ministerio, y de las mudanzas que había en el personal de todos los ramos de administración, sin que nadie piense en el desestanco de la sal, ni en las libertades y derechos que van a salir del calabozo en que estaban.’ Ayer, hoy y mañana (Barcelona 1893), II, 171. 12. Several of Bretón′s plays, notably Todo es farsa en este mundo (1835), Me voy de Madrid (1835), and Flaquezas ministeriales (1838), portray the lives and characters of bureaucrats. The picture that emerges is similar to Mesonero′s. The bureaucracy as a whole is associated with political and social instability, while as individuals bureaucrats tend to be dominated by their female relatives and to be prepared to subordinate any principle to the maintenance of their position. The cesante is a pathetic and extravagant creature. 13. See Galdós′ statement that ‘La primera aspereza de todos los Gobiernos ya está en plantas. Es la cuestión de personal, el reparto de destinos, cuestión que en cualquier otra parte sería secundaria, y aquí es pavorosa’ in ‘Un gobierno liberal’ for La Prensa in 1885, Obras inéditas de Pérez Galdós (Madrid 1923), ed. A. Ghiraldo, III, 101. According to R. Carr, ‘it is impossible to understand the politics of mid-century Spain without bearing constantly in mind how numerous was this class [of pretendientes]’, op. cit., 167. 14. Trollope′s Three Clerks of 1858 can be read in part as a defence of the Civil Service against the attack contained in Dickens′ Little Dorrit of 1857 and the reforms of the Trevelyan Committee which were, it was imagined, by means of competitive examinations open to any candidate, to transform the Civil Service from a preserve of gentlemen into a technocracy whose members would, Trollope feared, be more open to suborn-ment and whose selfish materialism would undermine the ideal of service to the nation. 15. Critics who have held Villaamil responsible for his own dilemma include S. Eoff in The Novels of Pérez Galdós. The Concept of Life as Dynamic Process (St Louis 1954) and, most vigorously, R. J. Weber in The Miau Manuscript of Benito Pérez Galdós (California 1964). Among those who have seen Villaamil as the innocent victim of an injust world are R. Gullón in Galdós, novelista moderno (Madrid 1966), A. A. Parker in ‘Villaamil— tragic victim or comic failure?’, AG, IV (1969), 13–23, G. Scanlon and R. O. Jones in ‘Miau: prelude to a reassessment’, AG, VI (1971), 53–62, and H. Ramsden in ‘The question of responsibility in Galdós’ Miau′, AG, VI (1971), 63–77. Most recently, G. W. Ribbans has convincingly occupied the middle ground. In ′Más sobre la figura de Villaamil en Miau′ to be published in Actas del primer congreso galdosiano (Las Palmas) he argues that there is no incompatibility between a recognition of Villaamil′s defects and feelings of deep compassion for him. 16. G. Scanlon and R. O. Jones, art. cit., 59. 17. R. Carr, op. cit., 397. 18. Obras inéditas de Perez Galdós, ed. A. Ghiraldo, IV, 59–64. 19. This and subsequent quotations from novels of Galdós refer to the Obras completas, 2nd ed. (Madrid 1950). 20. Galdós, Obras inéditas, ed. A. Ghiraldo, III, 300–02. 21. R. Gullón, op. cit., 304–10. R. J. Weber, op. cit., dismisses the argument in cavalier fashion on the grounds that there are between the two novels important differences of theme and plot. Gullón himself discusses these differences in some detail. 22. See for example ‘Carlos Dickens’ in Los artículos de Galdós en ‘La Nación,’ ed. W. H. Shoemaker (Madrid 1972), 450–54. 23. R. J. Weber, op. cit., 68, claims ‘much of the absurdity Villaamil encounters in the world is of his own making; all ways are not closed. This is illustrated by the success of other characters who are not much more deserving than Villaamil but whose attitudes are positive (Victor, Pantoja) or optimistic (Ruiz)’, while Gullón, op. cit., 295, claims ‘Villaamil en el mundo absurdo, es la víctima, la víctima inocente, y que por serlo será sacrificada.’ While Weber is clearly right to stress Villaamil′s shortcomings and his complicity in his own downfall, to claim that Quintina, a pedlar of smuggled religious knick-knacks, has a function in the novel which is ‘to symbolize the possibility of developing Spanish liberalism through Spain′s active, moderately religious middle-class’ (83) shows how far off course one can go by looking in the novel for something ‘positive’, for a firm foothold in its multidimensional irony. 24. Revista de España, XV, num. 59 (1870), 167. 25. Discursos leídos ante la Real Academia Española en la recepción pública del Sr. D. Benito Pérez Galdós (Madrid 1897), 11. The need for caution when attempting to analyse Galdós′ attitude to the middle class is demonstrated by the article ‘El I° de mayo’ published in La Prensa in 1885. In this piece Galdós comments on the intensification of the class war. While identifying himself with the middle class and its interests, he remarks how the proletariat is now challenging the bourgeoisie for rights and privileges as the bourgeoisie formerly challenged the aristocracy. He repudiates the belief he expressed at other times in the levelling out of social classes, ‘… desvanecen los sueños de los ilusionados con la nivelación social’ (Obras inéditas, IV, 267–77). Galdós′ radicalization in the later years of his life was not a senile whim, but the fruition of a tendency which had long existed in his thought.