Andrew Martin
- Published in print:
- 1990
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198157984
- eISBN:
- 9780191673252
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198157984.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
Jules Verne's fiction reads like a résumé of the nineteenth-century archive. This chapter proposes to read Verne's work as if it had been written by Napoleon Bonaparte and Jorge Luis Borges. ...
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Jules Verne's fiction reads like a résumé of the nineteenth-century archive. This chapter proposes to read Verne's work as if it had been written by Napoleon Bonaparte and Jorge Luis Borges. Cryptogram is an essential approach in studying Verne's texts. He has had the mantle of prophet thrust upon him, but that mantle is largely a mask. His books, while having the air of prophetic statements, anticipating journeys to the moon, beneath the sea or around the world, actually add little or nothing to the technology of the time or to prior speculation. He was the most modest and diffident of extrapolators. He was not impatient for the future, contrary to popular belief. If Verne himself cannot decently be attributed any major prophetic status, rebellious prophets nevertheless abound in his novels.Less
Jules Verne's fiction reads like a résumé of the nineteenth-century archive. This chapter proposes to read Verne's work as if it had been written by Napoleon Bonaparte and Jorge Luis Borges. Cryptogram is an essential approach in studying Verne's texts. He has had the mantle of prophet thrust upon him, but that mantle is largely a mask. His books, while having the air of prophetic statements, anticipating journeys to the moon, beneath the sea or around the world, actually add little or nothing to the technology of the time or to prior speculation. He was the most modest and diffident of extrapolators. He was not impatient for the future, contrary to popular belief. If Verne himself cannot decently be attributed any major prophetic status, rebellious prophets nevertheless abound in his novels.
Gareth Wood
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199651337
- eISBN:
- 9780191741180
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199651337.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This chapter takes on further close reading of Marías's translations, on this occasion another of the substantial projects of his early career, translating Sir Thomas Browne. Initially, the chapter ...
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This chapter takes on further close reading of Marías's translations, on this occasion another of the substantial projects of his early career, translating Sir Thomas Browne. Initially, the chapter discusses Marías's dismissal of the Spanish version of William Faulkner's The Wild Palms produced by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. Borges's fame as a polyglot, translator, and writer doubtless underpins Marías's desire to supersede this particular illustrious forerunner. Discussion of Marías's claims in relation to The Wild Palms is used as a way of broaching a comparison of Marías translation of the fifth chapter of Hydriotaphia by Sir Thomas Browne with that produced jointly by Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares. Browne's treatise on ancient burial rites, and its fifth chapter in particular, are regarded as among the finest pieces of English prose ever written and the analysis of two Spanish versions provides a rich opportunity to examine the relative merits of Marías and Borges as translators. Efraín Kristal's critical study of Borges the translator provides a source for insight into the Borges industry.Less
This chapter takes on further close reading of Marías's translations, on this occasion another of the substantial projects of his early career, translating Sir Thomas Browne. Initially, the chapter discusses Marías's dismissal of the Spanish version of William Faulkner's The Wild Palms produced by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. Borges's fame as a polyglot, translator, and writer doubtless underpins Marías's desire to supersede this particular illustrious forerunner. Discussion of Marías's claims in relation to The Wild Palms is used as a way of broaching a comparison of Marías translation of the fifth chapter of Hydriotaphia by Sir Thomas Browne with that produced jointly by Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares. Browne's treatise on ancient burial rites, and its fifth chapter in particular, are regarded as among the finest pieces of English prose ever written and the analysis of two Spanish versions provides a rich opportunity to examine the relative merits of Marías and Borges as translators. Efraín Kristal's critical study of Borges the translator provides a source for insight into the Borges industry.
Harris Feinsod
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190682002
- eISBN:
- 9780190682033
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190682002.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This chapter advances a “tropological history” of inter-Americanism by showing how foreign words (xenoglossia) became a key poetic device for Wallace Stevens, José Lezama Lima, and Jorge Luis Borges ...
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This chapter advances a “tropological history” of inter-Americanism by showing how foreign words (xenoglossia) became a key poetic device for Wallace Stevens, José Lezama Lima, and Jorge Luis Borges after World War II, at the low ebb of political inter-Americanism. It shows how Stevens’s monumental “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction” used this device in order to reimagine the poetic identity of the Americas—a gesture resonant with the US Congress’s contemporaneous debates about globalization. While Stevens’s “lingua franca et jocundissima” (his self-designated attempt to fashion a playful, sonorous global language) was rebuked in the United States by nationalistic postwar critics, the chapter demonstrates how it belongs to a rich vein of postwar poetry by Borges and Lezama, who respond to national and insular literary formations with similar turns toward international language norms and the style of “post-symbolism.”Less
This chapter advances a “tropological history” of inter-Americanism by showing how foreign words (xenoglossia) became a key poetic device for Wallace Stevens, José Lezama Lima, and Jorge Luis Borges after World War II, at the low ebb of political inter-Americanism. It shows how Stevens’s monumental “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction” used this device in order to reimagine the poetic identity of the Americas—a gesture resonant with the US Congress’s contemporaneous debates about globalization. While Stevens’s “lingua franca et jocundissima” (his self-designated attempt to fashion a playful, sonorous global language) was rebuked in the United States by nationalistic postwar critics, the chapter demonstrates how it belongs to a rich vein of postwar poetry by Borges and Lezama, who respond to national and insular literary formations with similar turns toward international language norms and the style of “post-symbolism.”
Jeffrey Lawrence
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- December 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190690205
- eISBN:
- 9780190690236
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190690205.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This chapter focuses on a paradigmatic misencounter between an American experiencer and a Latin American reader. Examining an implicit debate about the sources of Walt Whitman’s poetry and vision of ...
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This chapter focuses on a paradigmatic misencounter between an American experiencer and a Latin American reader. Examining an implicit debate about the sources of Walt Whitman’s poetry and vision of the Americas, I argue that Waldo Frank, one of the twentieth century’s main literary ambassadors from the US to Latin America, positioned Whitman as the representative US writer whose antibookish experiential aesthetics could serve as a model for “American” writers both in the North and in the South. I show how Frank’s framework provided a foil for Borges’s idiosyncratic view that Whitman’s poetry about America derived entirely from his readings of European and US writers. Although much of the best scholarship on Whitman’s reception in Latin America has concentrated on poets like José Martí and Pablo Neruda, who adapted Whitman’s naturalism, I contend that Borges’s iconoclastic portrait of Whitman as a reader profoundly influenced a range of anti-experiential literary theories and practices in Latin America.Less
This chapter focuses on a paradigmatic misencounter between an American experiencer and a Latin American reader. Examining an implicit debate about the sources of Walt Whitman’s poetry and vision of the Americas, I argue that Waldo Frank, one of the twentieth century’s main literary ambassadors from the US to Latin America, positioned Whitman as the representative US writer whose antibookish experiential aesthetics could serve as a model for “American” writers both in the North and in the South. I show how Frank’s framework provided a foil for Borges’s idiosyncratic view that Whitman’s poetry about America derived entirely from his readings of European and US writers. Although much of the best scholarship on Whitman’s reception in Latin America has concentrated on poets like José Martí and Pablo Neruda, who adapted Whitman’s naturalism, I contend that Borges’s iconoclastic portrait of Whitman as a reader profoundly influenced a range of anti-experiential literary theories and practices in Latin America.
Stefan Herbrechter and Ivan Callus
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846310614
- eISBN:
- 9781846313462
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846313462.011
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
This chapter discusses Jorge Luis Borges as a major literary precursor of contemporary posthumanist cyberliterature. It argues that Borges' speculative fictions and other prose writings provide ...
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This chapter discusses Jorge Luis Borges as a major literary precursor of contemporary posthumanist cyberliterature. It argues that Borges' speculative fictions and other prose writings provide glimpses of posthuman conditions that are more fully portrayed by writers such as William Gibson or Philip K. Dick. Borges' special value for critical posthumanism lies in the fact that his writings constitute an archive of the future even before it arrived. This chapter suggests that studying the connections between Borges and emerging cyberculture and its theorisation can offer significant and broader statements on the relations between literature and the post-human(ist).Less
This chapter discusses Jorge Luis Borges as a major literary precursor of contemporary posthumanist cyberliterature. It argues that Borges' speculative fictions and other prose writings provide glimpses of posthuman conditions that are more fully portrayed by writers such as William Gibson or Philip K. Dick. Borges' special value for critical posthumanism lies in the fact that his writings constitute an archive of the future even before it arrived. This chapter suggests that studying the connections between Borges and emerging cyberculture and its theorisation can offer significant and broader statements on the relations between literature and the post-human(ist).
Rebecca DeWald
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780983533955
- eISBN:
- 9781781384930
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9780983533955.003.0030
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter examines Jorge Luis Borges's 1937 translation of Virginia Woolf's 1928 novel Orlando. Borges's translation of Orlando was very popular in Spanish-speaking countries, but the text has ...
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This chapter examines Jorge Luis Borges's 1937 translation of Virginia Woolf's 1928 novel Orlando. Borges's translation of Orlando was very popular in Spanish-speaking countries, but the text has been interpreted as being contrary to what Woolf might have had in mind: feminist readings of Borges's text have often focused on passages where the Spanish version does not fully cater for a feminist perspective, or even contradicts it. The chapter first considers whether Borges's translation of the novel posed (or still poses) a threat to feminist readings of Woolf's text. It then explores some differences between the English and Spanish language system which might trigger problems in translation and goes on to discuss how Borges's solutions have been and can be interpreted. It also analyzes feminist criticism, in the form of feminist Translation Studies, and argues that a “mutually enriching dialogue” is created by the presumed equality (rather than a hierarchy) of the original text and its translation.Less
This chapter examines Jorge Luis Borges's 1937 translation of Virginia Woolf's 1928 novel Orlando. Borges's translation of Orlando was very popular in Spanish-speaking countries, but the text has been interpreted as being contrary to what Woolf might have had in mind: feminist readings of Borges's text have often focused on passages where the Spanish version does not fully cater for a feminist perspective, or even contradicts it. The chapter first considers whether Borges's translation of the novel posed (or still poses) a threat to feminist readings of Woolf's text. It then explores some differences between the English and Spanish language system which might trigger problems in translation and goes on to discuss how Borges's solutions have been and can be interpreted. It also analyzes feminist criticism, in the form of feminist Translation Studies, and argues that a “mutually enriching dialogue” is created by the presumed equality (rather than a hierarchy) of the original text and its translation.
Bernat Castany Prado
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780813054940
- eISBN:
- 9780813053356
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813054940.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
Castany Prado’s chapter offers a fuller understanding of Borges’s cosmopolitanism, which has been influential in contemporary Western literature in general, and, more specifically, in postnational ...
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Castany Prado’s chapter offers a fuller understanding of Borges’s cosmopolitanism, which has been influential in contemporary Western literature in general, and, more specifically, in postnational Latin American literature. The author traces the roots of cosmopolitanism back to the teachings of the Cynics, the Epicureans, the Stoics, and the Neo-Platonists, before identifying their literary projections in contemporary Hispanic literature. He then argues that the postnational paradigm is neither the direct result of recent globalization processes, nor can it be understood in solely internationalist terms; rather, it is heir to a millennia-long tradition of philosophical cosmopolitanism. This is especially important in the area of postnational Latin American literature, for which, according to Castany Prado, Borges constitutes a decisive influence.Less
Castany Prado’s chapter offers a fuller understanding of Borges’s cosmopolitanism, which has been influential in contemporary Western literature in general, and, more specifically, in postnational Latin American literature. The author traces the roots of cosmopolitanism back to the teachings of the Cynics, the Epicureans, the Stoics, and the Neo-Platonists, before identifying their literary projections in contemporary Hispanic literature. He then argues that the postnational paradigm is neither the direct result of recent globalization processes, nor can it be understood in solely internationalist terms; rather, it is heir to a millennia-long tradition of philosophical cosmopolitanism. This is especially important in the area of postnational Latin American literature, for which, according to Castany Prado, Borges constitutes a decisive influence.
Robert M. Philmus
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780853238997
- eISBN:
- 9781781380864
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Discontinued
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9780853238997.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This book offers a literary analysis of science fiction writing. It critically examines the works of some of the most prominent writers to have written in the genre — including Evgeny Zamiatin, Karel ...
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This book offers a literary analysis of science fiction writing. It critically examines the works of some of the most prominent writers to have written in the genre — including Evgeny Zamiatin, Karel Capek, Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, and Stanislaw Lem, along with English-language authors from H. G. Wells to Ursula Le Guin — and reveals how their works illustrate the fundamental elements of science fiction writing. The book looks at a diverse range of short stories and novels by the premier arbiters of the craft, with close readings that draw upon the theories of New Criticism as well as postmodernism. Featuring essays such as ‘Stanislaw Lem's Futurological Congress as a Metageneric Text’, ‘Kurt Vonnegut: Historiographer of the Absurd: The Sirens of Titan’, ‘Ursula K. Le Guin and Time's Dispossession’, and ‘Time Out of Joint: The World(s) of Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle’, the book provides an in-depth textual examination that reveals why science fiction is a ‘revisionary genre’.Less
This book offers a literary analysis of science fiction writing. It critically examines the works of some of the most prominent writers to have written in the genre — including Evgeny Zamiatin, Karel Capek, Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, and Stanislaw Lem, along with English-language authors from H. G. Wells to Ursula Le Guin — and reveals how their works illustrate the fundamental elements of science fiction writing. The book looks at a diverse range of short stories and novels by the premier arbiters of the craft, with close readings that draw upon the theories of New Criticism as well as postmodernism. Featuring essays such as ‘Stanislaw Lem's Futurological Congress as a Metageneric Text’, ‘Kurt Vonnegut: Historiographer of the Absurd: The Sirens of Titan’, ‘Ursula K. Le Guin and Time's Dispossession’, and ‘Time Out of Joint: The World(s) of Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle’, the book provides an in-depth textual examination that reveals why science fiction is a ‘revisionary genre’.
Chris Andrews
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231168069
- eISBN:
- 9780231537537
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231168069.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter compares Bolaño’s handling of potential and actual violent conflict with the duels in the work of his key precursor, Jorge Luis Borges. In Bolaño, physical violence is not inevitable; it ...
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This chapter compares Bolaño’s handling of potential and actual violent conflict with the duels in the work of his key precursor, Jorge Luis Borges. In Bolaño, physical violence is not inevitable; it functions as a test of courage but is not, as in the work of Borges, epiphanic, revealing a destiny and an identity. The confrontations narrated by Bolaño are generally intermediate rather than culminating moments in a life story, and they are interpersonal rather than personal affairs: characters generally accept the risk of violence in order to prevent harm to others, rather than to defend their own honor. These contrasts with Borges are, however, somewhat misleading, because they do not take into account later stories in which the Argentine author abandons the notion of the epiphanic duel. In short, where physical conflict is concerned, Bolaño more closely resembles the later Borges.Less
This chapter compares Bolaño’s handling of potential and actual violent conflict with the duels in the work of his key precursor, Jorge Luis Borges. In Bolaño, physical violence is not inevitable; it functions as a test of courage but is not, as in the work of Borges, epiphanic, revealing a destiny and an identity. The confrontations narrated by Bolaño are generally intermediate rather than culminating moments in a life story, and they are interpersonal rather than personal affairs: characters generally accept the risk of violence in order to prevent harm to others, rather than to defend their own honor. These contrasts with Borges are, however, somewhat misleading, because they do not take into account later stories in which the Argentine author abandons the notion of the epiphanic duel. In short, where physical conflict is concerned, Bolaño more closely resembles the later Borges.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804769549
- eISBN:
- 9780804773492
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804769549.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
In the middle of the century of novelty, Pedro Calderón de la Barca had a dream, a dream that marked the new space of modernity's relation to the possibilities of its own knowledge. That space is the ...
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In the middle of the century of novelty, Pedro Calderón de la Barca had a dream, a dream that marked the new space of modernity's relation to the possibilities of its own knowledge. That space is the Baroque, which was closed by Jorge Luis Borges in his own dream. The opening of that space corresponds to the historical Baroque, whereas its closing corresponds to the Neobaroque. Calderón de la Barca's La vida es sueño (Life is a Dream) is considered one of the masterpieces of western theater in general and of the Spanish Golden Age theater in particular. Immanuel Kant uses the major strategy in his ethics, suggesting that his epistemology is more conducive to the minor strategy. Borges's Kantianism is based on Kant's demonstration of unrealities that confirm the hallucinated or dreamt nature of the world. His neobaroque fiction takes the dream life at face value and serves as a stark reminder that the end of the dream is also a dream, a never-ending dream.Less
In the middle of the century of novelty, Pedro Calderón de la Barca had a dream, a dream that marked the new space of modernity's relation to the possibilities of its own knowledge. That space is the Baroque, which was closed by Jorge Luis Borges in his own dream. The opening of that space corresponds to the historical Baroque, whereas its closing corresponds to the Neobaroque. Calderón de la Barca's La vida es sueño (Life is a Dream) is considered one of the masterpieces of western theater in general and of the Spanish Golden Age theater in particular. Immanuel Kant uses the major strategy in his ethics, suggesting that his epistemology is more conducive to the minor strategy. Borges's Kantianism is based on Kant's demonstration of unrealities that confirm the hallucinated or dreamt nature of the world. His neobaroque fiction takes the dream life at face value and serves as a stark reminder that the end of the dream is also a dream, a never-ending dream.
Carlos Fonseca Suárez
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781683401483
- eISBN:
- 9781683402152
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9781683401483.003.0014
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
Carlos Fonseca Suárez read Jorge Luis Borges’s short story “El Aleph” as a reflection upon the limits of technological universalism as well as a reconfiguration of modern cosmopolitanism. Carlos ...
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Carlos Fonseca Suárez read Jorge Luis Borges’s short story “El Aleph” as a reflection upon the limits of technological universalism as well as a reconfiguration of modern cosmopolitanism. Carlos Fonseca Suárez then explores the figure of José Arcadio Buendía—founder of Macondo in Cien años de soledad (1967)—who in his obsession with scientific innovation takes Borges’s exploration of technological modernity and the impasses of modern progressivism even further, proposing instead a new dialectical model of universalism. Finally, Carlos Fonseca Suárez concludes by adding a final star to this constellation by exploring how the character of Luca Belladona in Ricardo Piglia’s 2010 novel Blanco nocturno allows for a rereading of this Humboldt’s plainsman scene in the contemporary socioeconomic context, where the relation between the global and the local, center and periphery, becomes intertwined in the elusive informational networks of global capital.Less
Carlos Fonseca Suárez read Jorge Luis Borges’s short story “El Aleph” as a reflection upon the limits of technological universalism as well as a reconfiguration of modern cosmopolitanism. Carlos Fonseca Suárez then explores the figure of José Arcadio Buendía—founder of Macondo in Cien años de soledad (1967)—who in his obsession with scientific innovation takes Borges’s exploration of technological modernity and the impasses of modern progressivism even further, proposing instead a new dialectical model of universalism. Finally, Carlos Fonseca Suárez concludes by adding a final star to this constellation by exploring how the character of Luca Belladona in Ricardo Piglia’s 2010 novel Blanco nocturno allows for a rereading of this Humboldt’s plainsman scene in the contemporary socioeconomic context, where the relation between the global and the local, center and periphery, becomes intertwined in the elusive informational networks of global capital.
Sarah Roger
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- February 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198746157
- eISBN:
- 9780191808791
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198746157.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This study provides a detailed investigation of Jorge Luis Borges’s development as an author in light of (1) Franz Kafka’s influence on Borges’s writing and (2) Borges’s relationship with his father, ...
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This study provides a detailed investigation of Jorge Luis Borges’s development as an author in light of (1) Franz Kafka’s influence on Borges’s writing and (2) Borges’s relationship with his father, Jorge Guillermo Borges (Borges père, a failed author). Reading Borges’s stories with respect to the influence of these literary and familial precursors explains some of his aims as a writer. Borges believed that much of Kafka’s writing derived from his personal experiences, particularly his relationship with his father. Following Borges’s lead, this book looks at how reading Kafka helped Borges mediate and make productive use of his relationship with Borges père. It offers an analysis of Borges père’s writing, Borges’s critical and creative writing on Kafka, and the short stories that Borges modelled on Kafka—both openly and indirectly. Particular attention is paid to the concepts that Borges identified as Kafka’s obsessions: subordination, infinity, and hierarchical relationships, which Borges referred to as the ‘patria potestad’. Kafka’s influence is evident not only in the stories in which Borges was intentionally imitating Kafka—‘La lotería en Babilonia’ (1941), ‘La biblioteca de Babel’ (1941), and ‘El Congreso’ (1971)—but also in many other pieces, especially those in Ficciones. Reading Borges’s writing with respect to Kafkian themes demonstrates the degree to which Borges was focused not just on the individual’s subordinate place in an infinite hierarchy, but also on the repercussions these circumstances had for a struggling author who was seeking to define himself through his writing.Less
This study provides a detailed investigation of Jorge Luis Borges’s development as an author in light of (1) Franz Kafka’s influence on Borges’s writing and (2) Borges’s relationship with his father, Jorge Guillermo Borges (Borges père, a failed author). Reading Borges’s stories with respect to the influence of these literary and familial precursors explains some of his aims as a writer. Borges believed that much of Kafka’s writing derived from his personal experiences, particularly his relationship with his father. Following Borges’s lead, this book looks at how reading Kafka helped Borges mediate and make productive use of his relationship with Borges père. It offers an analysis of Borges père’s writing, Borges’s critical and creative writing on Kafka, and the short stories that Borges modelled on Kafka—both openly and indirectly. Particular attention is paid to the concepts that Borges identified as Kafka’s obsessions: subordination, infinity, and hierarchical relationships, which Borges referred to as the ‘patria potestad’. Kafka’s influence is evident not only in the stories in which Borges was intentionally imitating Kafka—‘La lotería en Babilonia’ (1941), ‘La biblioteca de Babel’ (1941), and ‘El Congreso’ (1971)—but also in many other pieces, especially those in Ficciones. Reading Borges’s writing with respect to Kafkian themes demonstrates the degree to which Borges was focused not just on the individual’s subordinate place in an infinite hierarchy, but also on the repercussions these circumstances had for a struggling author who was seeking to define himself through his writing.
Edith Wyschogrod
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823226061
- eISBN:
- 9780823235148
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823226061.003.0023
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
What is it that we ask for when we ask for truth in the study of religion? The Enlightenment account of time promises a full recovery of events by stationing the observer ...
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What is it that we ask for when we ask for truth in the study of religion? The Enlightenment account of time promises a full recovery of events by stationing the observer outside of time or placing the observer in control of time by making time part of her computational scheme. In this view, time is made up of homogeneous units, so that it does not matter where the observer stands. The price is immediacy. The direct apprehension of a luminous object of contemplation or the sensory flooding of conscious awareness gives way to accuracy, the manner of being of the represented object. The study of religion is involved in this romance of facts in a special way. If the notion of fact reflects the effort to say what is, fiction attempts to imagine what is not, to bring absence into presence, to construct a world that does not exist. Fictions with such characteristics have metamorphosed into ficciones, the term Jorge Luis Borges, as a spinner of metaphysical conceits, applies to his stories.Less
What is it that we ask for when we ask for truth in the study of religion? The Enlightenment account of time promises a full recovery of events by stationing the observer outside of time or placing the observer in control of time by making time part of her computational scheme. In this view, time is made up of homogeneous units, so that it does not matter where the observer stands. The price is immediacy. The direct apprehension of a luminous object of contemplation or the sensory flooding of conscious awareness gives way to accuracy, the manner of being of the represented object. The study of religion is involved in this romance of facts in a special way. If the notion of fact reflects the effort to say what is, fiction attempts to imagine what is not, to bring absence into presence, to construct a world that does not exist. Fictions with such characteristics have metamorphosed into ficciones, the term Jorge Luis Borges, as a spinner of metaphysical conceits, applies to his stories.
Yemima Ben-Menahem
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780300209549
- eISBN:
- 9780300228038
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300209549.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter examines three stories by Jorge Luis Borges: “Funes: His Memory,” “Averroës's Search,” and “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote.” Each of these highlights the intricate nature of ...
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This chapter examines three stories by Jorge Luis Borges: “Funes: His Memory,” “Averroës's Search,” and “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote.” Each of these highlights the intricate nature of concepts and replication in the broad sense. The common theme running through these three stories is the word–world relation and the problems this relation generates. In each story, Borges explores one aspect of the process of conceptualization, an endeavor that has engaged philosophers ever since ancient Greece and is still at the center of contemporary philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. Together, Borges's stories present a complex picture of concepts and processes of conceptualization.Less
This chapter examines three stories by Jorge Luis Borges: “Funes: His Memory,” “Averroës's Search,” and “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote.” Each of these highlights the intricate nature of concepts and replication in the broad sense. The common theme running through these three stories is the word–world relation and the problems this relation generates. In each story, Borges explores one aspect of the process of conceptualization, an endeavor that has engaged philosophers ever since ancient Greece and is still at the center of contemporary philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. Together, Borges's stories present a complex picture of concepts and processes of conceptualization.
Gareth Wood
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199651337
- eISBN:
- 9780191741180
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199651337.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This chapter sets out to answer two questions: why did Marías begin to work as a translator and how does he translate. To answer the first of these, the chapter examines in detail his lecture ‘Desde ...
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This chapter sets out to answer two questions: why did Marías begin to work as a translator and how does he translate. To answer the first of these, the chapter examines in detail his lecture ‘Desde una novela no necesariamente castiza’, where he sets out the reasons for his initial rejection of his cultural and literary heritage in the early part of his career. Comparisons are made with other members of his generation, notably Antonio Muñoz Molina, to provide a wider picture of the ‘Novísimos’ generation of Spanish writers who came of age in the 1970s. To answer the second question, the chapter looks in detail at Marías's two most substantial essays on Translation Theory, placing them alongside works by George Steiner, José Ortega y Gasset, and Octavio Paz. Above all, Marías's attitudes to naturalization of the foreign culture through translation and to the degree of creativity involved in translation are the focus of discussion.Less
This chapter sets out to answer two questions: why did Marías begin to work as a translator and how does he translate. To answer the first of these, the chapter examines in detail his lecture ‘Desde una novela no necesariamente castiza’, where he sets out the reasons for his initial rejection of his cultural and literary heritage in the early part of his career. Comparisons are made with other members of his generation, notably Antonio Muñoz Molina, to provide a wider picture of the ‘Novísimos’ generation of Spanish writers who came of age in the 1970s. To answer the second question, the chapter looks in detail at Marías's two most substantial essays on Translation Theory, placing them alongside works by George Steiner, José Ortega y Gasset, and Octavio Paz. Above all, Marías's attitudes to naturalization of the foreign culture through translation and to the degree of creativity involved in translation are the focus of discussion.
Stewart King
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781789620580
- eISBN:
- 9781789629590
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789620580.003.0012
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter reflects on the tension between national-focused and more worldly readings of crime fiction. It treats crime fiction as a form of world literature and examines new ways of conceiving ...
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This chapter reflects on the tension between national-focused and more worldly readings of crime fiction. It treats crime fiction as a form of world literature and examines new ways of conceiving relationships between crime writers, readers and texts that eschew the common categorization of a universal British-American tradition, on the one hand, and, on the other, localized national traditions. Following Jorge Luis Borges, the chapter argues that the transnationality of the crime genre does not reside exclusively within the text, but rather emerges through the interaction of the reader and the text. What emerges is a transnational and trans-historical reading practice that respects the local but also allows for innovative connections and new paradigms to be forged when texts are read beyond the national context.Less
This chapter reflects on the tension between national-focused and more worldly readings of crime fiction. It treats crime fiction as a form of world literature and examines new ways of conceiving relationships between crime writers, readers and texts that eschew the common categorization of a universal British-American tradition, on the one hand, and, on the other, localized national traditions. Following Jorge Luis Borges, the chapter argues that the transnationality of the crime genre does not reside exclusively within the text, but rather emerges through the interaction of the reader and the text. What emerges is a transnational and trans-historical reading practice that respects the local but also allows for innovative connections and new paradigms to be forged when texts are read beyond the national context.
Walter L. Reed
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781786941817
- eISBN:
- 9781789623253
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781786941817.003.0017
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
Negative capability, Keats’s paradoxical phrase, was first articulated in personal conversation and has been used since, with increasingly different connotations, upwards of a million times in print. ...
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Negative capability, Keats’s paradoxical phrase, was first articulated in personal conversation and has been used since, with increasingly different connotations, upwards of a million times in print. This expanding phenomenon may be comprehensively understood through Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the ‘dialogic context’ in which human utterances interact with one another. This essay sketches first an immediate dialogic context of romanticism, in which the formulations of several of Keats’s own earlier and later letters as well as formulations from Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria (among other contexts) play a significant role. It goes on to compare the twentieth-century context of creative and critical postmodernism, in which negative capability is more radically redefined in the writings of Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, Charles Olson, William Spanos, and Paul de Man. In these later dialogues, the terms are reversed: negative capability becomes rather ‘capable negativity’, or an identity negatively sublime.Less
Negative capability, Keats’s paradoxical phrase, was first articulated in personal conversation and has been used since, with increasingly different connotations, upwards of a million times in print. This expanding phenomenon may be comprehensively understood through Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the ‘dialogic context’ in which human utterances interact with one another. This essay sketches first an immediate dialogic context of romanticism, in which the formulations of several of Keats’s own earlier and later letters as well as formulations from Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria (among other contexts) play a significant role. It goes on to compare the twentieth-century context of creative and critical postmodernism, in which negative capability is more radically redefined in the writings of Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, Charles Olson, William Spanos, and Paul de Man. In these later dialogues, the terms are reversed: negative capability becomes rather ‘capable negativity’, or an identity negatively sublime.
Manuel Duran and Fay R. Rogg
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300110227
- eISBN:
- 9780300134964
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300110227.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This chapter examines the influence of Don Quixote on twentieth-century authors. It considers the works of Miguel de Unamuno, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Graham Greene, Frank Kafka, and Jorge Luis Borges. ...
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This chapter examines the influence of Don Quixote on twentieth-century authors. It considers the works of Miguel de Unamuno, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Graham Greene, Frank Kafka, and Jorge Luis Borges. The chapter also discusses how Cervantes' influence extended to other literary genres, in particular the theater.Less
This chapter examines the influence of Don Quixote on twentieth-century authors. It considers the works of Miguel de Unamuno, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Graham Greene, Frank Kafka, and Jorge Luis Borges. The chapter also discusses how Cervantes' influence extended to other literary genres, in particular the theater.
Jacques Lezra
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780823279425
- eISBN:
- 9780823281527
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823279425.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This chapter turns to the problem of equivalence posed in Marx's theory of value. It focuses on the ontological contingency at the core of the concept of general equivalence: that because any object, ...
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This chapter turns to the problem of equivalence posed in Marx's theory of value. It focuses on the ontological contingency at the core of the concept of general equivalence: that because any object, produced by human labor or naturally occurring, may reveal itself over the course of time to be value-carrying, and thus to work like and as a commodity, any object at hand may step, according to laws not given in the object and not given necessarily, into the role of commodity, and thence into the sovereign role of general equivalent. Herman Melville's “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” written from the center of what would become global capital, Wall Street; and Jorge Luis Borges's translation, “Bartleby, el escribiente,” helps to show how this contingent determination shifts the question of abstraction on which Marx's analysis of equivalence turns toward the figure and dynamics of translation.Less
This chapter turns to the problem of equivalence posed in Marx's theory of value. It focuses on the ontological contingency at the core of the concept of general equivalence: that because any object, produced by human labor or naturally occurring, may reveal itself over the course of time to be value-carrying, and thus to work like and as a commodity, any object at hand may step, according to laws not given in the object and not given necessarily, into the role of commodity, and thence into the sovereign role of general equivalent. Herman Melville's “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” written from the center of what would become global capital, Wall Street; and Jorge Luis Borges's translation, “Bartleby, el escribiente,” helps to show how this contingent determination shifts the question of abstraction on which Marx's analysis of equivalence turns toward the figure and dynamics of translation.
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804758024
- eISBN:
- 9780804786775
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804758024.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
This chapter examines the truth of the crime scene in Bernardo Bertolucci's film The Spider's Stratagem. It explains that this film dramatizes and complicates the vicissitudes of the repeating line ...
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This chapter examines the truth of the crime scene in Bernardo Bertolucci's film The Spider's Stratagem. It explains that this film dramatizes and complicates the vicissitudes of the repeating line and transfers Jorge Luis Borges' time labyrinth from the domain of language to that of vision. It analyzes the intricate the pattern of the film and suggests that it succeeds in articulating the temporality of the future anterior as the chiasm of light and darkness. This chapter also contends that full speech in the film coincides with the subject's assumption of a language that refers back to itself and with the emergence of truth as revelation.Less
This chapter examines the truth of the crime scene in Bernardo Bertolucci's film The Spider's Stratagem. It explains that this film dramatizes and complicates the vicissitudes of the repeating line and transfers Jorge Luis Borges' time labyrinth from the domain of language to that of vision. It analyzes the intricate the pattern of the film and suggests that it succeeds in articulating the temporality of the future anterior as the chiasm of light and darkness. This chapter also contends that full speech in the film coincides with the subject's assumption of a language that refers back to itself and with the emergence of truth as revelation.
