Borges, Between History and Eternity by Hernan Diaz (.ePUB)
File Size: 1.2 MB
Borges, Between History and Eternity by Hernan Diaz
Requirements: .ePUB reader, 1.2 MB
Overview: Two circumstances mitigate the somewhat grandiose title of this book. First, that it is a paraphrase of one of Borges’s—History of Eternity. The paradox condensed in those three words inspires my own book: the opposite of eternity is not ephemerality or brevity. It is history: if eternity is an abstraction, history is material; if eternity is a continuum, history is nothing but notches. This leads to the second justification of my title: it flags the extremes between which Borges seems to be trapped. On the one hand, the Latin American writer with his political contradictions, his Argentine language, his criollo lineage and his gaucho fetishes, his revolutionary views of literary history. On the other hand, the mystic with his incorporeal enigmas, his esoteric references, his universal approach to literature, his nesting realities that ultimately show there is no reality. In brief, the “historical” vision of Borges is context-saturated, while the “eternal” view is context-deprived.
That Borges is one of the key figures in twentieth-century literature is beyond debate. The reasons behind this claim, however, are a matter of contention. In Latin America he is read as someone who reorganized the canon, questioned literary hierarchies, and redefined the role of marginal literatures. On the other hand, in the rest of the world, most readers (and dictionaries) tend to identify the adjective ‘Borgesian’ with intricate metaphysical puzzles and labyrinthine speculations of universal reach, completely detached from particular traditions. One reading is context-saturated, while the other is context-deprived. Oddly enough, these ‘institutional’ and ‘transcendental’ approaches have not been pitched against each other in a critical way. Borges, between History and Eternity brings these perspectives together by considering key aspects of Borges’s work – the reciprocal determinations of politics, philosophy and literature; the simultaneously confining and emancipating nature of language; and the incipient program for a literature of the Americas.
Genre: Non-Fiction > Educational
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