Muertos de risa: Reconsideraciones sobre el lenguaje en El doctor Centeno de Galdós

Abstract

El doctor Centeno, by Benito Pérez Galdós, has repeatedly been criticized for not conforming to the bases of literary realism, for being "loose, disjointed and poorly articulated," according to William Shoemaker (The Novelistic Art of Pérez Galdós). This article suggests something contradictory to these perceptions. It considers the novel to be a great example of Spanish realism, taking into account that Spanish literary realism does not reflect reality through a perfectly delineated plot, but rather questions a coherent conception of reality, presenting very subtly a fragmentary reality: a reality of crisis. In his fiction, Galdós uses humor in a way that challenges the definition of language in a traditional conception of literary realism. His use of it also starts to show the influence of the modern episteme in his late-nineteenth-century novels, which are no longer directed toward the representation of reality but toward the questioning of it.