Gloria

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

4.2

Word count: 401K words
Chapters: 41

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.Gloria (segunda parte) by Benito Pérez GaldósAuthor: Pérez Galdós, Benito, 1843-1920,Language: Spanish, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: May 12, 2015

Editor's review

Gloria is a novel by Benito Pérez Galdós, the great nineteenth-century Spanish realist; this electronic edition is the second part, in the original Spanish. The novel revolves around the heroine Gloria's emotional and religious conflicts, setting the clash of personal love, family ethics and religious belief against Spanish society, displaying Galdós's skill in psychological portrayal and social observation. As a public-domain electronic text, its value lies first in giving Spanish readers and students of nineteenth-century Spanish literature convenient access to the original; second, the second part usually carries forward the earlier conflicts and drives them to a climax, making it suitable for readers who have read the first part and wish to follow the characters' fates. Readers should note the sensitivity of religious issues at the time and the narrator's tone, in which sympathy for the characters' situation coexists with irony. This is not a light love story but a realist novel with an intellectual-debate dimension, suited to readers willing to read slowly and attend to inner struggle.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Intermediate and advanced readers of Spanish wishing to encounter nineteenth-century literary originals
Students and scholars studying Pérez Galdós and Spanish realist fiction
Literary readers interested in conflicts of religion, love and family ethics
Spanish readers who have read the first part and wish to follow the characters' fates

Not a good fit for

Beginners still at the elementary stage of Spanish reading who need annotated support
Casual readers expecting light romance or fast-paced plotting
Readers impatient with debate on religious issues and long psychological description

Reading tips

Be sure to read the first part before the second, or character relations and the origins of conflict will be hard to follow.
Attend to Gloria's wavering between love and faith, and keep a timeline of her psychological changes.
Consult brief background on nineteenth-century Spanish religion and society to understand the novel's real-world argument.
Spanish learners can read a chapter through for the plot first, then return to close-read key dialogue and accumulate literary expression.

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

Can I start directly with the second part?

Not advisable. The second part carries forward the first part's character relations and core conflicts; reading it directly leaves you without the antecedents and makes it hard to understand how Gloria's situation formed and where each character stands. Read the first part first, then this volume, to grasp the full thread of plot and psychological change.

What themes does the book mainly explore?

At its core is the conflict between personal feeling and religious belief and family ethics. Through Gloria's choice in love and crisis of faith, the novel presents the clash of different ideas in nineteenth-century Spanish society, also involving tensions among family authority, public opinion and individual will. It is closer to a realist novel of ideas than a simple love story.

How difficult is the Spanish original?

It is nineteenth-century literary language, with long sentences, interwoven narration and commentary, and period-colored vocabulary, overall harder than contemporary popular reading. Intermediate and advanced Spanish readers can make progress with a dictionary; beginners should read a Chinese or English translation first for the plot, then sample key chapters in the original.

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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.