Pedagogical keys in 'The Friend Manso': teaching profile of its protagonist

Abstract

This study has allowed an original approach to the pedagogical novel The Friend Manso, by Benito Pérez Galdós, whose's death centennial is taking place in 2020. After an introduction about the circumstances under which the novel was conceived, the following qualitative research, based on the hermeneutic-comprehensive methodology, has allowed the interpretation and description of various nuclear records in this Galdosian work that fully enters the field of education. Specifically, the investigation has enabled us to understand essential keys to the novel, particularly about Manso’s educational figure: his ascetic forge, in which Platonic and Christian roots are discovered, as well as elements taken from Krausism; the professor's pedagogical workmanship, as projected in his formative action and his educational discourse, analyzed above all from work carried out with his disciple Manuel Peña. In short, this research path helps to reveal the educational size of the novel, as well as the possibility of extracting in our days the formative benefit from it.