Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha. Benito Pérez Galdós
(1871) by Robert Browning is hardly more than a rude paraphrase of Euripides.
20. Sor Simona, drama en tres actos y cuatro cuadros. Madrid, Teatro Infanta Isabel, Dec. 1, 1915. Received with applause, but soon withdrawn.
The action takes place during the last Carlist war (1875) in Aragonese villages. Sister Simona is a runaway nun, thought slightly demented, who devotes herself to nursing the wounded of the war. She attempts to save the life of a young Alfonsist spy by declaring him her own son. This serves only to destroy her reputation for saintliness, and the situation is suddenly saved by an offer to exchange prisoners.
It will be seen that there is, properly speaking, no plot, and the ending is full of improbabilities. Once more Galdós, with characteristic persistence, has used the justifiable lie, which failed so signally in Los condenados. The work is saved by its poetic atmosphere and by the spiritual central figure. Charity is not to be imprisoned in convents; it is as free as the divine breath that moves the planets. God is reached by good works; the only fatherland worth fighting for is humanity; the only king, mankind. These are the teachings of Sor Simona. Her name is to be connected with Simon Peter, the cornerstone of the Church of Christ.
21. El tacaño Salomón, comedia en dos actos. Madrid, Teatro Lara, Feb. 2, 1916. (Sub-title, Sperate miseri.)
The scene is the modest home of a Madrid engraver who earns good wages, but is victimized by all who appeal to him for help. Stingy Salomón is sent him by a wealthy brother in Buenos Aires to assist his want if he will reform and acquire thrift. The engraver proves incorrigible, but, through his brother's death, receives the money nevertheless.
The play is of the same type as Celia en los infiernos, but is less interesting and even more improbable. In a way it is a complement to Pedro Minio, which taught the beauties of an open and generous life, while El tacaño Salomón appears to preach thrift. But the author has hard work to become enthusiastic over that virtue, and at the close quite lets it slip away from him. Both Celia and the present play are the work of a man who has despaired of accomplishing any good in society by logical and practical means, and resorts to the illusions of a child dreaming of a fairy godmother.
22. Santa Juana de Castilla, tragicomedia en tres actos. Madrid, Teatro de la Princesa, May 8, 1918.
A picture of the old age and death of Juana la Loca, the daughter of the Catholic Kings, and widow of Philip the Handsome. The Queen's mad passion for Philip is barely mentioned, her figure is idealized, and she is made a symbol of humility, self-effacement, and love for the humble. Closely guarded by a harsh agent of her son Charles V, she escapes for a day to a country village, where she talks in a friendly way with the peasants, discussing their problems with a simplicity which conceals much wisdom. To those who wish to use her name as a standard to restore the power of the common people, she insists that she desires nothing but darkness and silence in which to end her days. She had been suspected of heresy, because she read Erasmus, but the Jesuit Francisco de Borja, a man of saintly life, is with her at her death, and bears witness that her faith is untainted and that she will receive in the bosom of God the reward for her many sufferings.
As far back as 1907 Galdós was deeply interested in the life of this wretched Queen: "No hay drama más intenso que el lento agonizar de aquella infeliz viuda, cuya psicología es un profundo y tentador enigma. ¿Quién lo descifrará?"14 In his interpretation of her last moments, Galdós has made the figure of the Queen vaguely symbolic of present-day Spain, like Laura of Alma y vida. But she embodies still more the soul of the aged author, blind, feeble, living in silence and obscurity, absorbed in contemplation of approaching death.
The construction of the play is flawless, of diaphanous simplicity, the dialog is pure and brief, the characters are delicately outlined in a few sure touches. "A mournful, somber triptych," says Luis Brun of its three acts, "the central panel of which is lit by a ray of light." An atmosphere of serene melancholy broods over this admirable drama, fitting close to the career of a well-poised spirit.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
No definitive critical study has yet been made of any side of Galdós' work. The following list, by no means complete, does not include general histories of Spanish literature, encyclopedia articles or reviews in contemporary periodicals of first performances. The best of the last-named are those by Gómez de Baquero in España moderna. Criticisms dealing only with the novels of Galdós are not cited here.
Leopoldo Alas (Clarín), "Galdós" in Obras completas, tomo I, Madrid, 1912.
L. Antón del Olmet and A. García Carraffa, Galdós, Madrid, 1912. [Contains the most information.]
"El Bachiller Corchuelo" (González Fiol), "Benito Pérez Galdós," in Por esos mundos, vol. 20 (1910, I), 791-807; and vol. 21 (1910, II), 27-56. [Important.]
William Henry Bishop, in Warner's Library of the World's Best Literature, vol. XI, pp. 6153-63.
"El Caballero Audaz" (José María Carretero), Lo que sé por mí, 1ª serie, Madrid, 1915, pp. 1-11.
E. Díez-Canedo, "La Vida del Maestro," in El Sol, Jan. 4, 1920.
Archer M. Huntington, "Pérez Galdós in the Spanish Academy," in The Bookman, V (1897), pp. 220-22.
Rafael de Mesa, Don Benito Pérez Galdós, Madrid, 1920.
Emilia Pardo Bazán, "El Estudio de Galdós en Madrid," in Nuevo teatro crítico, agosto de 1891, pp. 65-74. (Obras completas, vol. 44.)
B. Pérez Galdós, "Memorias de un desmemoriado," in La esfera, vol. III, 1916 (especially the first two instalments).
B. Pérez Galdós, Prólogo to J. M. Salaverría, Vieja España, Madrid, 1907.
Camille Pitollet, "Comment vit le patriarche des lettres espagnoles," in Revue de l'enseignement des langues vivantes, Feb. 1918 (vol. XXXV).
Camille Pitollet, "Le monument Pérez Galdós à Madrid," in Revue de l'enseignement des langues vivantes, Feb. 1919 (vol. XXXVI).
Luis Ruiz Contreras, Memorias de un desmemoriado, Madrid, 1916, pp. 10, 65-72.
J. M. Aicardo, De literatura contemporánea, Madrid, 1905, pp. 316-50. [A Catholic point of view.]
Leopoldo Alas (Clarín), Galdós, Madrid, 1912. [Already a classic.]
Leopoldo Alas (Clarín), Palique, Madrid, 1893.
Rafael Altamira, De historia y arte (estudios críticos), Madrid, 1898, pp. 275-314.
Rafael Altamira, Psicología y literatura, Madrid, 1905, pp. 155-56 and 192-98.
Andrenio (Gómez de Baquero), Novelas y novelistas, Madrid, 1918, pp. 11-112.
Anonymous, "Benito Pérez Galdós," in The Drama, May, 1911, pp. 1-11 (vol. I).
Azorín, "Don Benito Pérez Galdós," in Blanco y negro, no. 1260 (July 11, 1915).
Azorín, Lecturas españolas, Madrid, 1912, pp. 171-76.
R. E. Bassett, in Modern Language Notes, XIX (1904), pp. 15-17.
Luis Bello, Ensayos e imaginaciones sobre Madrid, Madrid, 1919, pp. 95-129.
Christian Brinton, "Galdós in English," in The Critic, vol. 45 (1904), pp. 449-50.
Manuel Bueno, Teatro español contemporáneo, Madrid, 1909, pp. 77-107.
Barrett H. Clark, The Continental Drama of To-day, New York, 1915, pp. 228-32.
Barrett H. Clark, in Preface to Masterpieces of Modern Spanish Drama, New York, 1917.
José Díaz, Electra, Barcelona, 1901.
Havelock Ellis, "Electra and the progressive movement in Spain," in The Critic, vol. 39 (1901),