El diálogo en La Galatea

Dialogue is fundamental in the pastoral novel. The study of it in La Galatea reveals the work’s adherence to the code of the genre, with the numerous scenes of eavesdropping on another’s love lament, and the marked rhetoricism that imposes the same linguistic register for all speakers. Precisely this faithful adherence to the code will give rise to a conflict with the logic of the story, which will result in inconsistencies of characters and situations. In La Galatea, the dialogue determines a curious distribution of the different episodes in a sort of continuous take, which allows the author to overcome the scheme of interweaving between different narrative threads present in the model of La Diana. This work also highlights the anticipatory nature of La Galatea with respect to Don Quixote in relation to the use of some dialogic techniques, such as free indirect speech or free direct speech.