Benito Perez Galdos is generally recognized as Spain's greatest novelist since Cervantes. This study is a wide-ranging exploration of the role of contemporary Spanish history in Galdos' fiction. Galdos wrote prolifically in two distinct narrative modes - some 20 major "contemporary novels" in the realist tradition, and a special sort of historical novel he called the "episodio nacional". The reign of Isabella II (1843-1868) and the revolutionary period which followed until 1875 was a time of exceptional volatility in Spain, and Ribbans' study shows how each of Galdos' two narrative modes adopts a particular technique in their treatment of Spanish history and politics. The "episodio" is tightly bound to historical events and timescale, though it skilfully incorporates its fictional characters into this framework. The novel, on the other hand, is embedded in historical reality in a constant, but less systematic manner. The author also examines Galdos' treatment of historical themes in relation to such significant European writers as Tolstoy and Balzac.
- ISBN10 0198158815
- ISBN13 9780198158813
- Publish Date 8 July 1993
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 3 May 2011
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Oxford University Press
- Imprint Clarendon Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 327
- Language English