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Article: The function of the fantastic in Clarin's 'La Regenta.' (Leopoldo Alas "Clarin")
- Article from:
- The Romanic Review
- Article date:
- January 1, 1993
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1993 Columbia University. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Narrators of nineteenth-century realistic fiction pride themselves on effective mimesis, on representing material and emotional reality as accurately as possible. Their discourse attempts to recreate the material world and present characters who move within and react to it. This linguistic imitation builds and decorates rooms, clothes its characters, paints their faces and paves their city streets. The various social classes, marked by their titles, manners, servants and speech, slide into their carved-out niches.
Within this clearly-defined marking of material and linguistic signs, the narration must also account for "ces phenomenes... [qui] se passent dans une ...