A Lion of a Man: Buddhist Japonisme and Krausist Masculinity in Galdós's La familia de León Roch

• David R. George, Jr. ^[1]
  1. [1] Bates College

     Bates College

     City of Lewiston, Estados Unidos

     
• Localización: Hispanic review, ISSN-e 1553-0639, Vol. 91, Nº 4, 2023, págs. 491-516
• Idioma: inglés
• DOI: 10.1353/hir.2023.a917873
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen
  • español

    In this essay, I examine how the set of Japanese decorative items present in Benito Pérez Galdós's La familia de León Roch (1878) elucidates a reformulation of the Krausist model of masculinity embodied by the novel's hero. Focusing on Buddhist imagery in the text, I explore how allusions to the Eastern religion provide a symbolic framework to explore other modes for the liberal hero to be in the world that renders his apparent excesses into the positive behaviors necessary to effect reform and social change. Considering the rudimentary understandings of Buddhism that reached Spain amid the late-nineteenth-century Japan craze, Japonisme, then, I interpret León Roch not as a failed model of masculinity but rather as an alternative within Galdós's broader revision of the Krausist's ideal of the "hombre nuevo" in the late 1870s.

  • English

    In this essay, I examine how the set of Japanese decorative items present in Benito Pérez Galdós's La familia de León Roch (1878) elucidates a reformulation of the Krausist model of masculinity embodied by the novel's hero. Focusing on Buddhist imagery in the text, I explore how allusions to the Eastern religion provide a symbolic framework to explore other modes for the liberal hero to be in the world that renders his apparent excesses into the positive behaviors necessary to effect reform and social change. Considering the rudimentary understandings of Buddhism that reached Spain amid the late-nineteenth-century Japan craze, Japonisme, then, I interpret León Roch not as a failed model of masculinity, but rather as an alternative within Galdós's broader revision of the Krausist ideal of the "hombre nuevo" in the late 1870s.

• Referencias bibliográficas
  • Albaigès, Josep M., Diccionario de nombres de personas. U de Barcelona, 1993.
  • Almazán Tomás, David. "La seducción de Oriente: de la chinoiserie al japonismo." Artigrama, no. 18, 2003, pp. 83–106.
  • Aresti, Nerea. Médicos, donjuanes y mujeres modernas: los ideales de feminidades y masculinidad en el primer tercio del siglo XX. U del País...
  • Bergue, Ernesto. "El budhismo en Japón." El Globo, 24 August 1878, p. 1.
  • Casalduero, Joaquín. "Tristana, la dama japonesa entre Dante y Shakespeare." Actas del Segundo Congreso Internacional de Estudios...
  • Chandler, Arthur. "The Paris Exposition Universelle of 1878." Heroism in Defeat, www.arthurchandler.com/new-pageparis-1878-exposition....
  • Conway, Colleen. Behold the Man: Jesus and Greco-Roman Masculinity. Oxford UP, 2008. C opeland, Eva. "Galdós's El amigo Manso: Masculinity,...
  • Deal, William E., and Brian Ruppert. A Cultural History of Japanese Buddhism. John Wiley & Sons, 2015.
  • Ducor, Jérôme. "Le japonisme bouddhique." Le bouddhisme de Madama Butterfly: le japonisme bouddhique, edited by Jérôme Ducor and Christian...
  • Feeny, Thomas. "The Evolution of Galdos' Krausism: La familia de León Roch and El doctor Centeno." Revista Hispánica Moderna,...
  • George, Jr., David R. "Galdós and Japonisme: The Floating World of León Roch." Anales Galdosianos, vol. 52, 2017, pp. 11–32.
  • George, Jr., David R. "Tristana como novela japonista." X Congreso Internacional Galdosiano, Cabildo de Gran Canaria, 2013, pp. 480–85.
  • Giner de los Ríos, Francisco. "La educación moral en el Japón." Boletín de la Institución Libre de Enseñanza, vol. 31, no. 563–64,...
  • Giner de los Ríos, Francisco. "Sobre La familia de León Roch." Ensayos, Alianza, 1969, pp. 64–77.
  • Girard, Frédéric. "Émile Guimet, the History of Religions, and Japanese Buddhism." The Eastern Buddhist, vol. 48, no. 1, 2017, pp....
  • Gordon, Rae Beth. Ornament, Fantasy, and Desire in Nineteenth-Century French Literature. Princeton UP, 2014.
  • Gullón, Germán. "La lección del pedagogo Giner de los Ríos al novelista Pérez Galdós." Bulletin of Spanish Studies, vol. 95, no. 9–10,...
  • Hall, J. B. "Galdós's Use of the Christ-Symbol in Doña Perfecta." Anales Galdosianos, vol. 8, 1973, 95–98.
  • Heim, Maria. "The Aesthetics of Excess." Journal of the American Academy of Religion, vol. 71, no. 3, September 2003, pp. 531–54.
  • Heredia Soriano, Antonio. "El Krausismo español." Cuatro ensayos de historia de España, Edicusa, 1975.
  • "Inside the First Issue of Lion's Roar Magazine." Lion's Roar, 13 January 2016, The Lion's Roar Foundation, www.lionsroar.com/inside-the-first-issue-of-lions-roar-magazine/....
  • Jagoe, Catherine. Ambiguous Angels: Gender in the Novels of Galdós. U of California P, 1994.
  • McKinney, Collin. "How to Be a Man." Spain in the Nineteenth Century: New Essays on Experiences of Culture and Society, edited by...
  • Mínguez-Blasco, Raúl. "Between Virgins and Priests: The Feminisation of Catholicism and Priestly Masculinity in Nineteenth-Century Spain."...
  • Montesinos, José F. Galdós. Vol. 1, Castalia, 1968.
  • Müller, Friedrich Max. "Buddhist Nihilism." The Essential Max Müller: On Language, Mythology, and Religion, edited by John Stone,...
  • Oller, Narcis. "En la exposició de Paris (Impressions)." La Renaxensa, vol. 2, no. 1, 15 July 1878, pp. 27–32.
  • Ortiz Armengol, Pedro. Vida de Galdós. Crítica, 2000.
  • Pérez Galdós, Benito. La familia de León Roch. Cátedra, 2003.
  • Picón, Jacinto Octavio. "París y la exposición." El Imparcial, 1 September 1878.
  • Powers, John. A Bull of a Man: Images of Masculinity, Sex and the Body in Indian Buddhism. Harvard UP, 2012.
  • Reed, Christopher. Bachelor Japanists: Japanese Aesthetics and Western Masculinities. Columbia UP, 2016.
  • Revilla, Manuel de la. Review of La familia de León Roch. Revista Contemporánea, no. 19, 1879, pp. 500–10.
  • Sánchez Llama, Íñigo. Introduction. La familia de León Roch, by Benito Pérez Galdós, 1878, Cátedra, 2003, pp. 13–127.
  • Shen, Hsueh-man. Authentic Replicas: Buddhist Art in Medieval China. U of Hawai'i P, 2019.
  • Sinnigen, John. "Tristana: la tentación del melodrama." Anales Galdosianos, vol. 25, 1990, pp. 53–58.
  • Souto Rumbo, Ismael. La medida de un hombre: las representaciones de la masculinidad en las novelas de Benito Pérez Galdós. 2015. Stony Brook...
  • Strong, John S. Buddhisms: An Introduction. Oneworld, 2015.
  • Suñer y Capdevila, Francisco. Debate. Constitutional Court, 26 April 1869, El Boletín de las Cortes Constituyentes, 27 April 1869, p. 1.
  • Turnbull, Stephen R. The Kakure Kirishitan of Japan: A Study of Their Development, Beliefs and Rituals to the Present Day. Japan Library,...
  • Trunga Rinpoche, Chögyam. "Living the Lion's Roar: How to Practice Fearlessness." Lion's Roar, 27 Aug. 2017. www.lionsroar.com/living-the-lions-roar-how-to-practice-fearlessness/.
  • Valis, Nöel. "Novel into Painting: Transition in Spanish Realism." Anales Galdosianos, vol. 20, no. 1, 1985, pp. 9–20.
  • Velez de Cea, Abraham. "Buddha (c. 500s B.C.E.)." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, iep.utm.edu/buddha/#SH2a. Accessed 17 May 2021.
  • West, David. Horace Odes 3, Oxford UP, 2002.