| "Goya y la primera serie de Episodios Nacionales de Benito Perez Galdos: Un ensayo sobre ekphrasis" is a study of the first series of Galdos' Episodios Nationales (1873-1875) through the relation with the works of Francisco de Goya y Lucientes.;In Galdos' project of novelize the history of Spain from the naval battle of Trafalgar and, for the most part, the Napoleonic invasion (1808-1812), he uses a gamut of sources as part of his documentation of the period. From historical documents to the theater of Leandro Fernandez de Moratin and newspaper articles, the most significant one was the paintings and etchings of Goya. On one hand, the author quotes direct titles of two of his most famous paintings in the first episodios, namely, La familia de Carlos IV and Los fusilamientos del 3 de mayo. On the other, he hides the images of the Disasters of War as the novels develop.;My argument is that at the end of the year of 1873 there was a significant shift in the process of quoting Goya's work. After the first three episodios, Galdos turn his attention to the painter's etchings as a way to reconstruct the images of war depicted by Goya as a true eyewitness. In these terms, the principal focus of our dissertation is to trace those concealed images borrowed from the Disasters of war that have remained undiscovered in almost 125 years.;It was most significant for our investigation to see how, at the end of the ten short novels, Galdos went back to Goya's official portraits, in a similar way he did at the beginning of the series. Thus, we explore in detail how the paintings of Juan Martin Diez, El Empecinado, and the Duke of Wellington, function as a symbolic closure of the entire collection.;The purpose of the dissertation is not only to reveal the author's intricate process of describing Goya's images, but also to explore various possible explanations to this literary strategy. |
