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Anales galdosianos [Publicaciones periódicas]. Año XII, 1977
«Lo que le falta a un enfermo le sobra a otro»: Galdós'
Conception of Humanity in La desheredada
M. Gordon
In the by now fairly substantial body of critical literature on Galdós' La desheredada two issues
stand out as having particularly engaged the critics' attention: the nature of the segunda manera and
the related (and to some virtually identical) problem of the novel's naturalistic content. These are
major questions, no doubt, and questions which must be grappled with in any attempt to assess either
the novel itself or Galdós' creative evolution as a whole. The fact remains, however, that the result of
such deliberations has all too often been an over-compartmentalised vision of Galdós' development 52
and a tendency to over-emphasise the Zolaesque elements of the novel. These two weaknesses seem
to me to stem from a basic methodological deficiency the fact that, with some exceptions (notably the
works of Hafter 53 , Russell 54 , Ruiz Salvador 55 , Montesinos 56 and Lowe 57 ), the novel is usually
dealt with more in terms of external comparison (with the novels which preceded it or with those of
Zola which influenced it) than on its own merits as an independent work of art with its own internal
coherence -a procedure which not only does a disservice to the novel but also vitiates many of the
conclusions arrived at with regard to the segunda manera and naturalism.
A recent and welcome corrective to the above tendency is F. Durand's «The Reality of Illusion:
La desheredada » 58 . Eschewing the habitual preoccupation with naturalist influences, Durand
52 A tendency recently subjected to critical scrutiny by R. Cardwell in «Galdós' Early Novels and the
segunda manera : A Case for a Total View», Renaissance and Modern Studies , XV (1971), 44-62.
53 M. Z. Hafter, «Galdós' Presentation of Isidora in La desheredada », Modern Philology , LX (1962),
22-30.
54 R. H. Russell, «The Structure of La desheredada » Modern Language Notes , LXXVI (1961),
794-800.
55 A. Ruiz Salvador, « La función del trasfondo histórico en La desheredada », Anales Galdosianos ,
I (1966), 53-62.
56 J. F. Montesinos, Galdós, vol. II (Madrid, 1969).
57 J. Lowe, «Galdós' Skill in La desheredada », Iberoromania , II (1971), 142-51.
58 Modern Language Notes , LXXXIX (1974), 191-201.
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