The Consuming Passion: Appetite and Hunger in La Regenta

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Notes

1. Galdós, in his prologue to the 1901 edition of the novel, reprinted in Gonzalo Sobejano's edition (Madrid: Castalia, 1981), I, 87, saw Ana's adultery as a response to a sense of ‘vacio’, while F. W. Weber in ‘Ideology and Religious Parody in the Novels of Leopoldo Alas’, BHS, XLIII (1966), 197–98 (at p. 197) and ‘The Dynamics of Motif in Leopoldo Alas’ La Regenta’, Romanic Review, LVII (1966), 188–99 (at p. 195) sees the motivation as an urge to escape. Nimetz, ‘Eros and Ecclesia in Clarín's Vetusta’, MLN, LXXXVI (1971), 242–53 and J. Rutherford, Leopoldo Alas: ‘La Regenta’ (London: Grant and Cutler, 1974), 13, place Ana's action within a framework of power and control. Durand, ‘Characterization in La Regenta: Point of View and Theme’, BHS, XLI (1964), 86– 100, discusses in this connection how Álvaro manipulates the Vetustan's susceptibility to literature (while, less credibly, he sees Ana as viewing her affair as a means to having children). S. Eoff, in The Modern Spanish Novel (New York: New York U.P., 1961), 78, is one of the few critics to judge Ana as moved by erotic impulse.

2. Benito Pérez Galdós, Fortunata y Jacinta (1884–86), Part II, Ch. II, viii, in Obras completas, ed. F. C. Sainz de Robles, 6 vols (Madrid: Aguilar, 1967), V, 188–89.

3. The most extensive discussion of food, eating and appetite in the novel is by Noel M. Valis, The Decadent Vision in Leopoldo Alas (Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State U.P., 1981), esp. pp. 65–71, an excellent consideration of feasting in La Regenta seen in the classical traditions of lasciviousness and irreverence. Guido Mazzeo, ‘The Banquet Scene in La Regenta: A Case of Sacrilege’, Romance Notes, X (1968), 68–72 and F. Weber, ‘The Dynamics of Motif in Leopoldo Alas's La Regenta’ discuss the banquet of Chapter 20 as a caricature of the Last Supper. Jo Labanyi, ‘City, Country and Adultery in La Regenta’, BHS, LXIII (1986), 53–66, makes suggestive points about the importance of food in the novel. The symbolic importance of food in the novel is also discussed by José Paulino Ayuso, ‘Devorar para ser devorado: comentario sobre un arquetipo en La Regenta de Clarín’, Cuadernos de lnvestigación Filológica, XV (1989), 25–39, a study which came to my attention after the completion of this article.

4. La Regenta (1884–87), ed. Gonzalo Sobejano, 2 vols, (Madrid: Castalia, 1981), I, 94. All references to La Regenta will be to this edition.

5. The opening pages of the novel are not, of course, exclusively concerned with the aspects emphasized here. For a full discussion of some other aspects see J. Rutherford, ‘La Regenta’ y el lector cómplice (Murcia: Universidad de Murcia, 1988), 41–55.

6. See John Rutherford, Leopoldo Alas: ‘La Regenta’; B. W. Ife, ‘Idealism and Materialism in Clarín's La Regenta: Two Comparative Studies’, Revue de Littérature Comparée, XLIV (1970), 273–95; Frances Weber, ‘The Dynamics of Motif in Leopoldo Alas's La Regenta’, Jo Labanyi, ‘City, Country and Adultery in La Regenta’.

7. Labanyi, art. cit., 62. I am indebted to Jo Labanyi's article for highlighting some of the problems related to food in La Regenta, and for her helpful suggestions and comments on this article.

8. Labanyi, art. cit., 62–63.

9. Rutherford, 1974, 55.

10. For full characterization of the causes of anorexia see Sheila Macleod, The Art of Starvation (London: Virago, 1981) and Hilde Bruch, The Golden Cage: The Enigma of Anorexia Nervosa (Shepton Mallet: Open Books, 1978, paperback edition 1980). Anorexia was described and named a century ago by Sir William Gull, and there is evidence to believe that it was known in England as early as 1689 (Bruch, vii, Macleod, 13). There is no evidence of Alas’ awareness of the disorder as such, but rather the careful observation of a phenomenon that was not unknown at the time.

11. See particularly Labanyi, art. cit., 53–58, 63–65.

12. Claude Lévi-Strauss, Le cru et le cuit (Paris: Librairie Plon, 1964), and Labanyi, art. cit., 62 and note 21. Some ideas derived from Lévi-Strauss, particularly pertaining to anti-food and rotten or tainted food, are explored by Sarah E. King, ‘Food imagery in Fortunata y Jacinta’, AnalesGaldosianos, XVIII (1983), 79–88, and there are interesting comments on digestion in P. B. Goldman, ‘El trabajo digestivo del espíritu: sobre la estructura de Fortunata y Jacinta y la función de Segismundo Ballester’, Kentucky Romance Quarterly, XXXI (1984), 177–87. Both of these articles pursue lines of argument which contain points of interest for this discussion of La Regenta. Endo-cuisine and exo-cuisine are defined in Levi-Strauss, ‘The Culinary Triangle’, New Society, 22 December 1966, 937–40. Jo Labanyi, ‘The Raw, The Cooked and the Indigestible in Galdós's Fortunata y Jacinta’, Romance Studies, XIII (Winter 1988), 55–65, gives a more detailed discussion of Lévi-Strauss’ ideas, showing how culinary images and language are used to illustrate the nature/ culture dichotomy in that novel.

13. See ‘alimentar’ in Maria Moliner, Diccionario del uso del español (Madrid: Gredos, 1970): ‘nutrir, mantener, sostener, sustentar’–all terms that are far-reaching in significance.

14. See Bruch, op. cit., 73–74, and Macleod, op. cit., 64–83.

15. See Marina Warner, Alone of all her Sex: The Myth and Cult of the Virgin Mary (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1976; repr. London: Picador, 1985), 307–09.

16. Pérez Galdós, prologue to La Regenta, Madrid, January 1901, reprinted in Gonzalo Sobejano's edition of La Regenta (Madrid: Castalia, 1981), I, 87. The prologue was written by Galdós at Alas’ request for the second edition of the novel.