Las dos caras de Jano: la Guerra de la Independencia como materia novelable en Galdós by Toni Dorca (review)

Toni Dorca has the magnificent idea to contextualize in a special way his study of the eleven Galdosian episodios nacionales wherein Don Benito retells the War of Independence with its prologue of naval combat and crushing defeat in Trafalgar through to its practical conclusion with the Battle of Vitoria in the first volume of the Second Series, El equipaje del rey José. This way is particular because of how it takes into account not only the episodios first published between 1873 and 1875, but also because of the care taken with relevant Galdosian articles and texts of speeches published in periodicals from 1870 through 1909. Together all these materials serve to frame Dorca’s complex view of Galdós’s working and reworking the political themes which vertebrate the eleven episodios in question. The contextualization also includes serious consideration of other Galdosian creative efforts. These include: El audaz (1871), La Fontana de Oro (1871), the ten volumes of the grand illustrated edition of the First and Second Series of Episodios Nacionales (1882-85), Gerona. Drama lírico en cuatro actos y en prosa (1893), Zaragoza. Drama lírico en cuatro actos (1908), and the illustrated volume Episodios nacionales. Guerra de la Independencia, extractada para uso de los niños (c. 1908). Dorca studies how this second body of creative work, in conjunction with coetaneous articles and speeches, demonstrates a Galdós refreshing his interpretation and fictionalization of Spanish social, historical and political evolution through the nineteenth and into the twentieth century. Moreover, the range of Dorca’s exposition and analysis is further amplified by his taking as necessary intertexts to the eleven episodios the sainetes of Ramón de la Cruz for their portrayal of the common people of Madrid, and Goya’s Desastres de la guerra for their rendering of the multilateral barbarism of the War.

Dorca’s global thesis on Galdós’s portrayal of the War of Independence is reiterated at various times throughout the book. An early iteration states that “A semejanza del dios Jano, nuestro autor enjuicia el alzamiento de sus compatriotas desde dos ópticas diferentes” (19). The obvious one is favorable “por cuanto salvaguarda la soberanía de España” (19). The other is more complex and, as Dorca shows, reveals more variants: “en contra, por cuanto provoca una escisión de la conciencia nacional que degenera en cainismo” (19). The first episode, Trafalgar, is the most positive, simplest portrayal of the positive “optic,” whereas the eleventh, El equipaje del rey José, is the most negative as it portrays the rise of the two-Spains conflict through the mortal enmity between the afrancesado Salvador Monsalud and his half-brother, the monarchical Carlos Navarro. Then through the years, beginning with the illustrated edition of 1882-85 of the first twenty episodios and, depending on the extent events have influenced Galdós’s interpretation of the Spanish homeland-political entity equation, Dorca analyses how Don Benito modifies in theatrical and young peoples’ versions his original 1873-1875 vision and portrayal of the events and leaders of different phases of the War of Independence. The more negative, problematic vision dominates in Gerona. Drama lírico en cuatro actos y en prosa. But Episodios nacionales. Guerra de la Independencia, extractada para uso de los niños presents an ultimately patriotic, positive retelling of the War, albeit in a greatly-abridged and in some ways new text.

A hallmark of Dorca’s book is the pains it takes to compare and contrast in the most even-handed way the contrasting visions over the ideological spectrum and time of both “optics” on the War of Independence. For example, an important source of information for Galdós as he wrote was always Count Toreno’s five-volume Historia del levantamiento, guerra y revolución de España (1835-37). Yet while the declaredly absolutist Count’s view of the guerrilla movement...