2012 Galdós Lecture - University of Sheffield

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Admission is free and without a ticket but please contact Rhian Davies (rhian.davies@sheffield.ac.uk) to book a place
The lecture is endowed by the Spanish Embassy

Abstract

As a lifelong liberal, Galdós had a special interest in the Cadiz Constitution of 1812, which he saw as a document that signalled the beginning of political modernity in Spain. It is no surprise, therefore, that he should deal with the Constitution and the world that gave birth to it in one of his early Episodios Nacionales, the novel Cádiz, written in the tumultuous year of 1874. This lecture will consider the significance of 1812, the role and function of Galdós’s historical novels, and the unexpectedly complex and ambiguous view of the 1812 Constitution that emerges from the early masterpiece that is Cádiz.