As we analyze nineteenth century novels we should keep in mind that the very economic history of Spain and Europe is now being reexamined and reappraised and, with it, commonly used terms such as «capitalism», «bourgeois», «urbanization», «liberalism», «industrialism», «feudalism», «dual society», «town-and-country», and, above all, «dependency». An excellent guide, very useful for a better understanding of the age of Doña Perfecta, is Ronald H. Chilcote, «Dependency: A Critical Synthesis of the Literature», Latin American Perspectives (1974), pp. 4-21. The bibliography discusses works that have dealt with models of «dependency» and «difusion». Both deal with the town-city economic situation. (N. del A.)

«[...] farming conditions in the secano, which prevailed over so much of central Spain, were capable of little immediate improvement... and... there was little hope of agrarian reform...» Carr, op. cit., p. 392. (N. del A.)

The bibliography on these problems of ideology developed by Karl Marx in his The German Ideology, have multiplied at such a pace the last few years, especially in England, France and Italy, that it becomes near impossible to attend to them if they must be examined one by one. Quantity, however, should not obscure the basic issues of ideology: first, the standard use of the term as a systematic structure of interrelated ideas or beliefs and, next, the complex use of this structure in society whereby it is framed and propounded for an ulterior purpose. Some works on the subject: Henri Lefebvre, The Sociology of Marx, Penguin (1972), especially Chap. 3, «Ideology and the Sociology of Knowledge»; K. Burke, Rhetoric of Motives, Univ. of Calif Press (Berkeley, 1969), pp. 84ff; New Literary History (Ideology and Literature), op. cit.; Marta Harnecker, «Estructura ideológica», Los conceptos elementales del materialismo histórico, Siglo XXI (1976), pp. 96-111. (N. del A.)

For the implications now among literary critics of Marx's writings on ideology as consciousness of reality wherein «men and their circumstances appear upside down as in a camera obscura...» see Juan Eugenio Corradi, «Textures Approaching Society, Ideology, Literature», Ideologies and Literature, I, No. 2 (March 1977). Also G. A. Huaco, «Ideology and Literature», New Literary History, IV (Spring, 1973), 421-436. (N. del A.)

Cardona, op. cit., p. 46, and Cardwell, op. cit., give the most accurate descriptions of Remedios and most convincing explanations of her importance in the mainspring of the novel's action. (N. del A.)

Carr, op. cit. (N. del A.)

Gustavo Correa in «El arquetipo de Orbajosa en Doña Perfecta, de Pérez Galdós», written first as article (La Torre, VII, 26 [1959], 123-36) and later collected, significantly, in his book El simbolismo religioso de Galdós, Gredos (Madrid, 1962), takes an ahistorical position and as a result of schematic reductions does not even explain pertinent materials that crop up in his own essay. Doña Perfecta despite religious symbolism, is not a religious novel: «todos los males de la Iglesia española no son de la Iglesia católica como tal; son males de España», Montesinos, op. cit., p. 175. The situation of Orbajosa, read in its time, represents an important stage in, what economic historians call, the transition (with resistance) from feudal to capitalist economy; the conflict is related to the attempts to urbanize the countryside. The various symbols springing from Orbajosa enhance historical realities and vice-versa. In short, Orbajosa's symbolism is richer and more complex than some symbolist critics have suggested. As a corrective to this type of criticism, including for Doña Perfecta, the following essay may be indispensable: Noël Salomon, «Algunos problemas de sociología de las literaturas de lengua española», in Creación y público en la literatura española, Castalia (Madrid, 1974), pp. 15-39. (N. del A.)

Galdós represents here a clear case of anachronism: Cayetano's obsession as bibliophile and minute historian is directly related to a propensity for interpreting present problems by referring them always to the past. Cayetano's is of course Spain's anachronism. The method is not unlike that of Cervantes in portraying the obsession of the hidalgo and next relating it to the anachronism of the times. Cf. Vilar, DQ, op. cit. Cf. Montesinos' sharp observation: «política y religión son como son porque cuantos las profesan son incapaces de hacerse cargo de la realidad. España es una paranoia», op. cit., p. XIX. Ironically, it is Pepe's father who, without any irony, portrays the Spanish countryside as urbs augusta, «tranquilidad», «dulzura», «idilios», «patriarcales costumbres», «nobleza», «sencillez», «rústica paz virgiliana» (III, 74). (N. del A.)

«[...] the dualistic tendency to separate urban progress and rural backwardness, seen as a relic of the past, must be set against the fact that 'urbanization' and 'ruralization' are opposite sides of the same process of the capitalist division of labor. And, of course, the conception of towns as the historical agency behind all change has deep and enduring cultural roots», John Merrington, «Town and Country in the Transition to Capitalism», New Left Review, 93 (Sept.-Oct. 1975), 71-92. This is a dense survey of the various economic shifts within the town-country relation. For a survey of the cultural roots, see R. Williams, The Country and the City. (N. del A.)

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Pepe's mockery must be contrasted not only to Cayetano's eulogy but also to the earlier exalted description of his father (see ft 59). Almost all critics have made use of Gilman's analysis of G's ironic use of classical analogies: «Referencias clásicas», op. cit. (N. del A.)