Bryan Cameron

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Decimonónica

Volume

10

Issue

2

Publisher

Decimonónica

Publication Date

2013

First Page

1

Last Page

18

Abstract

While critics tend to classify Benito Pérez Galdós as a realist novelist, a distant cousin of Dickens, Balzac, or Tolstoy, such a generalization undercuts much of his literary output that challenges the constraints of realist discourse in late-nineteenth-century Spain. Galdós was, for many years, one of Europe’s most prolific realists and the first arbiter of what constituted modern Spanish fiction following the publication of his essay “Observaciones sobre la novela contemporánea en España” (1870) in which he argues for the pioneering of a new, national novel.1 Nevertheless, from the outset of his novelistic career, Galdós tests the limits of verisimilitude in works such as La sombra (1870), El amigo Manso (1882), and a number of short stories, although it is not until the composition of La incógnita in 1888 that we can pinpoint a definitive turn away from realist writing in favor of what I term Galdós’s subversive aesthetic.2 With the publication La incógnita/Realidad, Galdós endeavors to craft an innovative brand of novelistic expression that marks a decisive break with the “socio-mimetic predominance” of nearly 20 years of realist and naturalist production (Miller 126).3 This shift, which, at first glance, might only appear to indicate a new phase of artistic experimentation, is highly significant as it reveals the novelist’s mounting skepticism regarding the political (un)reality of Restoration Spain.

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