Electra

Pérez Galdós, Benito, 1843-1920Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.5

Word count: 307K words
Chapters: 31

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Electra by Benito Pérez GaldósAuthor: Pérez Galdós, Benito, 1843-1920,Language: Spanish, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Feb 4, 2009

Editor's review

Electra is a play by the Spanish realist writer Benito Pérez Galdós, offered free of charge as an e-book by Project Gutenberg. Galdós is known for his fine psychological portraiture and social observation, and this work continues his concern with faith, reason, and family ethics, revealing through conflict among the characters the intellectual tensions of late nineteenth-century Spanish society. The play is dense with dialogue and its characters hold sharply defined positions; reading it conveys both the tension of the stage and the author's reflections on blind zealotry and tolerant rationality. The original Spanish is clear and the work is not long, making it a suitable introduction to Galdós's dramatic world and a good choice for Spanish learners building experience in literary reading. As you read, note the clashes of ideas behind the characters' lines and how the author uses the space of the family to reflect public issues.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Chinese readers interested in Spanish literature and realist drama
Learners with some grounding in Spanish who wish to read the original text
Readers researching Galdós's work or nineteenth-century Spanish intellectual history

Not a good fit for

Readers with no Spanish at all who are not using a translation
General leisure readers looking for light entertainment fiction
Readers impatient with the dramatic form and dialogue of ideas

Reading tips

First learn about the historical background of Galdós's time, then enter the characters' dialogue to understand the context of their conflicts of ideas.
Read the original alongside a Chinese translation or introduction to lower the language barrier and follow the plot.
After finishing, sort out the differences in the main characters' positions and consider the author's attitude toward reason and faith.
Spanish learners can choose striking passages of dialogue to read aloud and feel the rhythm of dramatic language and the characters' tones.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

What level of Spanish is needed to read this book?

The original is in Spanish, in a style close to dramatic dialogue; the sentences are not very difficult, but the work touches on nineteenth-century social and religious issues. Readers with intermediate Spanish reading ability who can use a dictionary to understand long sentences will be better suited; beginners are advised to read alongside a translation or introduction.

Is Electra a novel or a play?

According to the source description, it is a dramatic work by Galdós, with dialogue driving the plot. Read it as a play, understanding scene changes and exchanges of lines, rather than expecting novelistic narrative description.

What are the features of the Gutenberg edition?

This edition is released by Project Gutenberg as a free e-book, easy to obtain on a computer or e-reader. It mainly provides the original text and usually contains no detailed notes or introduction, so readers may need to supply background material themselves.

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About the author

Pérez Galdós, Benito, 1843-1920 Author

Benito Pérez Galdós (1843–1920) is a major representative of Spanish realist fiction, with 39 of his works held in this collection. Public information is limited, so biographical details are kept brief, but the character of his work is clear: he generally sets his stories against everyday life in Spanish cities and villages, portraying society through themes such as marriage, family, poverty and shifts in class. Representative works including Fortunata y Jacinta, Misericordia, Marianela, Tormento and La de Bringas reflect this direction. His style combines realism with irony, with careful psychological portrayal and vivid dialogue; historical works such as Trafalgar show his ability to handle broad settings. His writing has had a lasting influence on later Spanish fiction.