Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

El doctor Centeno : a study in obsolescent values

1978; Liverpool University Press; Volume: 55; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1475382782000355245

1469-3550

Geraldine M. Scanlon,

Comparative Literary Analysis and Criticism

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image sizeBSS Subject Index: PÉREZ GALDÓS, BENITO (1843–1920)POLITICS [AS LITERARY, CULTURAL & IDEOLOGICAL THEME] Notes 1. ‘Hoja literaria de los lunes’, La Época, 30 July 1883. 2. Galdós, II (Madrid 1968), 62–63, 71–73, 78. 3. ‘Unidad de El doctor Centeno’, CHA, 250–252 (1970–71), 579–585. 4. The maturing of an individual: G. Gullón, art. cit., 581 and S. H. Eoff, The Novels of Pérez Galdós. The Concept of Life as Dynamic Process (St Louis 1954), 14; the conflict between imagination and reality: J. Casalduero, Vida y obra de Galdós, 2nd ed. (Madrid 1970), 72; pedagogy: D. Lida, ‘Sobre el “krausismo” de Galdós’, AG, 11(1967), 11–15. J. F. Montesinos’ decision to class El doctor Centeno with Tormento and La de Bringas as ‘novelas de la locura crematística’, rather than with La desheredada and El amigo Manso as ‘novelas pedagógicas’, is based on the view that the first part of the novel is merely an introduction to the second, despite the fact that they are almost equal in length, op.cit., 73, 78. 5. See J. F. Montesinos, op. cit., 62–64 and 78. 6. All references are to B. Pérez Galdós, Obras completas, 7th ed. (Madrid 1969). 7. H. Spencer, Education, Intellectual, Moral, Physical (London 1861), 44–46. Galdós's library contains a marked copy of the Spanish translation of 1879 by S. García del Mazo. According to Leopoldo Alas, Galdós was reading this in 1882 in preparation for El doctor Centeno: Clarín, ‘Crónica literaria’, Arte y Letras (1 April 1883), 59. The notion that science is poetic was not new but it is probable that Galdós's reading of Spencer focused his attention on the point. For a discussion of nineteeth-century attitudes to science and poetry see M. H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp; Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (1953; rpt. New York 1976), 101, 298–335. 8. For an account of the historical background see R. Carr, Spain 1808–1939 (Oxford 1966), 257–304. 9. See F.Giner de los Ríos, ‘La juventud y el movimiento social’ (1870) in Obras completas, VII (Madrid 1922), 101–26. 10. See J. F. Riaño, ‘La instrucción pública durante el ministerio del señor Albareda’, Revista de España, XCVI, núm. 382 (1884), 161–77. For the history of education in late nineteenth-century Spain see Y. Turin, L’Éducation et l’école en Espagne de 1874 à 1902 (Paris 1966). 11. Congreso Nacional Pedagógico 1882, Actas de las sesiones celebradas (Madrid 1882), 99. The aim of the congress was to establish the reforms required to adapt the educational system to social needs and to enlighten public opinion on the subject. It was organized by the Fomento de las Artes, a society for the education of workers in which many institucionistas played an active part. The interests of the latter are prominently reflected in the topics proposed for discussion at the congress; these included compulsory primary education, manual work, intuitive methods, object lessons, museos escolares, excursions, kindergarten, women's education, reforms in the escuelas normales and improvements in the conditions of primary teachers. See Congreso Nacional Pedagógico 1882, Actas, 8–9. 12. Congreso Nacional Pedagógico 1882, Actas, 141. This hostility to modern pedagogical theory was anticipated by P. Alcántara García in the speech with which he opened the congress; he dwelt at length on the dangers of overestimating the value of teaching experience and of dismissing all theory as Utopian, Actas, 20. 13. See note 7 above. Spencer's work consisted of three essays on intellectual, moral and physical education and an important preliminary essay entitled ‘What knowledge is of most worth?’. The influence of Spencer's educational ideas on Galdós is discussed by C. Steele, ‘The Literary Expression of Educational Attitudes and Ideas in the Novels of Pérez Galdós’ (unpublished dissertation, Ohio State University 1957), 8, 114–18, 123. Steele deals only with Spencer's first essay and its textual similarities with don Jesús Delgado's letters, not with the other three essays which I believe to be important. My treatment of Spencer's influence and my general conclusions arc, therefore, different from his. 14. The summary is based on H. Spencer, op.cit.; J. J. Rousseau, Émile (1762): M. R. Hcaftord, Pestalozzi (London 1967); Friedrich Froebel, A Selection from his Writings, ed. I. M. Lilley (Cambridge 1967); F. Giner de los Ríos, ‘Estudios sobre educación’, Obras completas, VII (Madrid 1922). For an account of the influence of Pestalozzi and Froebel in Spain see R. Ma Labra, ‘Los fundadores de la escuela contemporánea’ in Estudios de economía social, 1a serie (Madrid 1892), 1–114. Galdós's interest in pedagogical methods may have been stimulated by his friend M. Tolosa Latour, whose ‘Bases científicas para la educación física, intelectual y sentimental de los niños’, which was serialized in Revista Europea from 23 November 1879 to 4 January 1880, contains a critique of traditional methods and a broad survey of modern pedagogical theory, the implementation of which he vigorously advocates. 15. See D. Lida, art. cit., 12–13. 16. This doctrine runs through all four essays but was most amply stated in the first, ‘What Knowledge is of Most Worth?’. It is interesting to note that after the 1868 Revolution, one of the new government's first reforms was to establish a more scientifically orientated curriculum in secondary education as an alternative to the traditional one, and to suppress Latin as an entrance requirement for the Faculties of Science, Pharmacy and Medicine (Decreto de 25 de octubre de 1868). The preamble to the decree sharply criticized the previous predominance of classical studies and asserted that the new measure was designed to bring public education in line with the needs of modern life. See R.J. Brusola and F. Casaseca, Legislación de la época revolucionaria de España (Madrid 1871), 465–66. 17. Op. cit., 56–58. W. T. Pattison, ‘El amigo Manso and el amigo Galdós’, AG, II (1967), 144–48, deals in general terms with the influence of Spencer on Manso's development and argues that the latter finally reverts to krausismo. Manso's final position is closer to Spencer's than Pattison suggests; it bears a remarkable similarity to Spencer's assessment of the potential of education as a means of social reform. Spencer dismissed as Utopian the notion that an ideal humanity might be produced by a perfect educational system and argued that even if it were possible to produce an ideal being, it was doubtful that he would be fit for the world as it was since ‘his too keen sense of rectitude, and too elevated standard of conduct would make life impossible’. Reform would have to be slow and, although it was necessary to maintain an ideal as a standard, ‘the dictates of abstract rectitude will, in practice, inevitably be subordinated by the present state of human nature—by the imperfections alike of children, of parents, and of society; and can only be better fulfilled as the general character becomes better’, op. cit., 107–12. 18. Felipe's first reactions on seeing the house make an explicit link between doña Isabel's world and Polo's: ‘era [la casa] para él tan misteriosa, emblemática e incomprensible como una de aquellas páginas de la Gramática o de la Aritmética, llenas de definiciones y guarismos que no había entendido nunca’ (1366). 19. Compare Spencer's defence of science as the basis of all civilization, the discipline to which ‘we owe our emancipation from the grossest superstitions’, op. cit., 54. J. F. Montesinos argues that the portrait of doña Isabel is admirable but ‘una interrupción en el curso de la novela’, op. cit., Ti. The charge of excessive length might be justifiable if her only function were to advance the plot and provide a hereditary antecedent for Alejandro, but not if, as I believe to be the case, her real importance lies in her contribution to the theme. 20. Her name is clearly significant. She shares with Isabel II, whom she fervently admires, a superstitious piety and blindness to the inevitability of social and political change. Godoy (despite the narrator's denial of any actual kinship) suggests pretentiousness, especially since her family's power dates from the eighteenth century, and Hinojosa (the name of one of the oldest families in Castile) her attachment to traditional values. 21. D. Lida, art. cit., 12. C. Steele, ‘The Literary Expression’, 115–18. The first of don Jesus's letters (1404) closely follows the opening of Spencer's ‘What Knowledge is of Most Worth?’; it also makes explicit the problem which was implicit in the description of Polo's school: the impossibility of introducing a modern educational system in a backward and stagnant society. A contemporary relevance is given to the question in the students’ apocryphal reply which is dated 8 November 1883 and informs don Jesús that after twenty years his moment of triumph has come since ‘al fin ha sido derrocado el trono secular y con él han desaparecido las prácticas añosas y las ideas rancias’ (1405)—a prediction accurate only in its forecast of political change. 22. Don Jesús draws on Spencer's division of education into intellectual, moral and physical, his theories about the transmission of defects from parents and teachers to children (op.cit., 30–31, 109–10), the importance of wise study and healthy living (144–90) and the value of acquirement as knowledge and mental discipline (12). 23. Op. cit., 9–11. For his comments on child prodigies see 60 and 179. 24. Alejandro's philosophy of life, which he expounds shortly before his death (1448–49) is a parody of the Romantic concept that the poet's task was to present reality not in the unemotional and objective manner of science, but modified by the passions and imagination of the perceiver. See M. Abrams, op.cit., 299. As M. Nimetz points out, Alejandro is partly based on ‘the Galdós of twenty years before, with his dreams of glory and his romantic dramas in verse’, Humor in Galdós. A Study of the ‘novelas contemporáneas’ (New Haven and London 1968), 26. 25. J. Ortega Munilla enthusiasticallv welcomed this opening as an anti-Romantic manifesto, El Imparcial, 28 May 1883. 26. G. Correa deals with the significance of El Grande Osuna in ‘Pérez Galdós y la tradición calderoniana’, CHA, 250–252 (1970–71), 227–30. M. Nimetz points out that Alejandro's play is basically of Romantic inspiration, although the verses quoted from it are from Calderón; it is, he suggests, ‘a pastiche, representative of the favor which Spanish baroque drama enjoyed among European dramatists of the Romantic period.’ There is, as Nimetz says, ‘nothing preposterous about El Grande Osuna. It belongs to its era and could easily have been written, performed, and admired in the 1860s, when the events of El doctor Centeno take place’, op. cit., 65. See also note 24 above. Galdós discusses the relationship between the popularity of the folletín and the Spanish character and literary traditions in his ‘Observaciones sobre la novela contemporánea en España’, Revista de España, XV, núm. 59 (1870), 162–63.