Journal | Rassegna iberistica
Journal issue | 42 | 111 | 2019
Research Article | Missing Information in the Fictional Worlds of Benito Pérez Galdós

Missing Information in the Fictional Worlds of Benito Pérez Galdós

A Modern and Vital Experiment

Abstract

This paper will examine the use of missing information in some novels by Benito Pérez Galdós: the trilogy El doctor Centeno, Tormento, La de Bringas. Galdós’ plots are built on allusions and withheld information, and revealed by different narrative voices; they require an active participation on the part of the reader, who must put together different blocks of information as though they were tesseras in a mosaic. This missing information leads to subjective textual lacunas, that is, they are deliberately interlocutory and relational, in order to lead the reader to a continual collaboration and to make him/her create logical connections between the text’s different perspectives. The use of this reticence strategy creates an almost metafictional relationship between Galdós’ works and the reader, a bond that is surprisingly modern with respect to the latter’s horizons of expectation.


Open access | Peer reviewed

Submitted: Jan. 31, 2019 | Accepted: April 1, 2019 | Published June 21, 2019 | Language: es

Keywords Galdós’ novels • Aposiopesis • Reticence • Novelas • Lagunas textuales • Reticencia • Paralipsis • | Benito Pérez Galdós • Técnicas retóricas • Textual lacunas • Rhetorical techniques

Copyright © 2019 Donatella Siviero. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/Ri/2037-6588/2019/12/002


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