A Dickensian Interlude in Galdós’ Rosalía

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Notes

1. Benito Pérez Galdós, Obras completas: novelas y miscelánea, ed. Federico Carlos Sainz de Robles (Madrid: Aguilar, 1977), III, 1468.

2. Walter T. Pattison, Benito Pérez Galdós. Etapas preliminares de ‘Gloria’ (Barcelona: Puvill-Editor, n.d.).

3. Benito Pérez Galdós, Rosalía, ed. Alan Smith (Madrid: Cátedra, 1984). Subsequent page references to this novel appear in the text.

4. The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1989), XI, 845, lists ‘a small faggot or bundle of firewood’ as a nineteenth-century variant meaning for the word pimp. Although this definition fits the character's size and temperament, it is unlikely that Galdós knew of its existence.

5. Kelsie B. Harder, ‘Charles Dickens Names His Characters’, Names, VII (1959), 339.

6. In her study ‘Galdós y los ingleses en la primera serie de los Episodios nacionales’, Galdós y la historia, ed. Peter A. Bly (Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions Canada, 1988), 75–76, Emily Letemendía notes that the English love of sherry appears again in La batalla de los Arapiles, and that this trait is not limited to Galdosian novels since it is also found in Fernán Caballero's La gaviota. For a discussion of how Galdós’ portrayal of the English changed after he travelled to their country see Doireann MacDermott, ‘Inglaterra y los ingleses en la obra de Pérez Galdós’, Filologia Moderna, VI (1965–66), 45.

7. G. L. Brook, The Language of Dickens (London: André Deutsch, 1970), 214–15.

8. Walter T. Pattison, Benito Pérez Galdós and the Creative Process (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1954), 8; and Walter T. Pattison, ‘How Well Did Galdós Know English?’, Symposium, XXIV (1970), 151.

9. In this scene Dickens also may have been influenced by a previous work. In B. C. Saywood's discussion of the similarities between Pickwick Papers and William Combe's Dr. Syntax’s Tour in Search of the Picturesque, ‘Dr. Syntax: A Pickwickian Prototype?’, Dickensian, LXVI, No. 1 (1970), 28, the Mr Pickwick/Mrs Bardell altercation is shown to have a counterpart in the fainting scene between Dr Syntax and the Widow Hopefull.

10. Once again in this scene Dickens may have been influenced by previous literary sources. Steven H. Gale, ‘Cervantes’ Influence on Charles Dickens, with Comparative Emphasis on Don Quijote and Pickwick Papers’, ACer, XII (1973), 146, mentions the similarity between the Mr Pickwick/Miss Witherfield mistaken bedroom incident and the one involving Don Quijote and Maritornes in the loft of the inn. However, H. M. Daleski, in Dickens and the Art of Analogy (New York: Schocken Books, 1970), 22–24, feels that the presence of Don Quijote in Dickens’ novel is mediated by Fielding's Joseph Andrews, well known to be written in imitation of Cervantes. Alan Smith, Epilogue, Rosalía, 427, notes the similarity between the don Juan Crisóstomo/Mistress Sherrywine bedroom scene and the ones in Don Quijote and Joseph Andrews, but he does not mention Pickwick Papers. Due to Galdós’ familiarity with Dickens’ work and the lack of evidence concerning his knowledge of Joseph Andrews, it is likely that the echoes of Cervantes and Fielding which are present in this scene come by way of Dickens’ Pickwick Papers.

11. This similarity between the lost Galdosian manuscript and Pickwick Papers was first noted by Walter Pattison, Benito Pérez Galdós. Etapas preliminares de ‘Gloria’, 52–53. He also mentions that Galdós’ caricature of antiquarians is reprised in Angel Guerra with the character don Simón Palomeque.

12. For example see James R. Kincaid, Dickens and the Rhetoric of Laughter (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 26; Alexander Welsh, ‘Waverley, Pickwick, and Don Quixote’, NCF, XXII (1967), 23; and H. M. Daleski, op. cit., 19.

13. As Walter Pattison has observed, in Benito Pérez Galdós. Etapas preliminares de ‘Gloria’, 54, a similar misunderstanding in the preparation of tea for English tastes is found in chapter seven of Batalla de los Arapiles.

14. Michael Nimetz, Humour in Galdós: A Study of the ‘Novelas contemporáneas’ (New Haven: Yale U.P., 1968), 209, finds the low-key ‘humour of familiarity’ to be the comic form most typical of Galdós.

15. The majority of the parallels between Galdosian and Dickensian texts have been pointed out by scholars in the form of off-hand comments made while pursuing other aspects of Galdós writings rather than presented as detailed comparisons focusing on the similarities themselves. However, three studies are of particular note: Vernon A. Chamberlin, ‘The Muletilla: An Important Facet of Galdós’ Characterization Technique’, HR, XXIX (1961), 296–98; Effie L. Erickson, ‘The Influence of Charles Dickens on the Novels of Benito Pérez Galdós’, Hispania, XIX (1936), 421–30; and Stephen Gilman, Galdós and the Art of the European Novel: 1867–1887 (Princeton: Princeton U.P., 1981).