The approach is anachronistic because it often places the early characters, events, ideas and techniques, at least by contrast, in the inappropriate historical period of the later Galdós. Analyzing the 1876 Doña Perfecta, for example, in the light of «our», not Galdós', knowledge of his later novels, critics time and again slip and erroneously deal with the 33-year old novelist as if by 1876 he had already written La desheredada, Miau, Torquemada, Nazarín. The following example is not meant to single out a particular scholar but rather to offer what is, for better or for worse, a case symptomatic of the majority of critics: Doña Perfecta is a work «which foreshadows in many respects the great novels of Galdós' mature period», Doña Perfecta, by J. E. Varey, Grant & Cutler, Tamesis (London, 1971), p. 9. (N. del A.)

A successful effort at a historical treatment of literature is Pierre Vilar, «El tiempo del Quijote» in Crecimiento y Desarrollo (Barcelona, 1964), pp. 431-448. (N. del A.)

The prejudices of Hispanists toward melodrama are, in a different context, reflected in Dictionary of Modern English Usage, 2nd edition, by H. W. Fowler, revised and edited by Sir Ernest Gowers: «[Melodrama] is generally used with some contempt, because the appeal of such plays is especially to the unsophisticated, whose acquaintance with human nature is superficial, but whose admiration for goodness and detestation of wickedness are ready and powerful. The melodramatist's task is to get his characters labelled good and wicked in his audience's minds, and to provide striking situations that shall provoke and relieve anxieties on behalf of poetic justice. Whether a play is or is not to be called a melodrama is therefore often a doubtful question, upon which different critics will hold different opinions» (p. 357). (N. del A.)

For a useful discussion in connection with the problems raised here see Eric Bentley's reappraisal of «melodrama», in his The Life of the Drama, Atheneum (New York, 1967), pp. 195-218. He tackles the touchy questions of the bad name of melodrama, of self-pity, pity and fear, exaggeration, language. Two articles where the author tries to underplay melodrama by relating technique and lesson to tragedy avoid the issues involved in the «heightening and intensification of the dramatic conflict, suspense...». V. A. Chamberlin, «The Significance of Artistry in the Sound Effects in Galdós' Doña Perfecta», Homenaje a Sherman Eoff, Castalia (Madrid, 1970), pp. 79-85; «Doña Perfecta: Light and Darkness, Good and Evil in Galdós». Such studies are schematic in technique and conclusions. (N. del A.)

Bentley, Drama, op. cit., p. 200. Also, «Perhaps the success of the melodramatists will always depend primarily upon his power to feel and project fear» (pp. 200-201). (N. del A.)

Vida y Obra de Galdós, Gredos (Madrid, 1951). Casalduero's brief analysis remains still one of the most precise and reliable descriptions of the novel. (N. del A.)

I do not refer to the strict, scientific meaning of a mental disorder, characterized by delusions or even hallucinations, but rather to the accepted connotation of exaggerated suspicions of persecution. As such, paranoia is a fundamental ingredient of melodrama, Cf. Bentley, op. cit. I wish to acknowledge here the helpful theoretical directions on the practice of melodrama provided by my colleague, Hernán Vidal. (N. del A.)

Even though a careful survey of «catharsis» reveals radical differences of opinion, a discussion of tragic modes is incomplete without it. The experience of fear and pity produced by a work of fiction (and in particular drama) and which effects a purification or cleansing of the emotions is conveniently avoided in discussions about the tragic basis of Doña Perfecta. One reason may be absence of a clear-cut tragic pattern. It is time not to favor one mode over another but to accept and consider the implications revealed in the data of the text: for it is often hard in Doña Perfecta to draw a line between melodrama and tragedy. «Rather than separate blocks, the reality seems to be a continuous scale with the crudest melodrama at one end and the highest tragedy at the other... Yet the idea of such a scale is misleading if it suggests that tragedy is utterly distinct from melodrama. There is a melodrama in any tragedy...» Bentley, op. cit., 217-218. (N. del A.)

The intrusion of Chap. XXXIII (a coincidence with Galdós' age of 33? or the 33 cantos of each section of Dante's Divine Comedy or the age of Christ etc., etc.?) follows, significantly, the local «historian's» appraisal of the recent catastrophe. It is the narrator's deliberate corrective and a reminder that, unlike in classic tragedies, Spaniards, even in the midst of disaster, do not understand but instead confuse appearances for realities. Without awareness of what goes on there is no catharsis. (N. del A.)

Cf. Fontanella, op. cit., for an analysis of Cayetano in his letters and for the function of them in the structure of the narrative. (N. del A.)