A Spectral Epistemology: A Supersessionist Reading of Galdós’s Daniel Morton

Benito Pérez Galdós’s Gloria (1877) has been interpreted as a passionate appeal for religious tolerance and a daring embrace of Judaism. A philo-Semitic reading of Gloria must, however, reconcile with the overtly Christian framework with which the novel attempts to humanize its Jewish protagonist, Daniel Morton. Using theories of allosemitism and spectrality, this article examines the presence of Morton as an epistemological obstacle with which the author, the characters and contemporary readers are confronted. Described ambivalently as both a spectre and a Christlike figure, Daniel carries out a messianic function in the novel, delivering a decadent family from ruin and preparing the way for a new, tolerant religious order. Nevertheless, this messianic role leads to Morton’s expendability and re-enacts the Christian supersession of Judaism.