24 pages • 48 minutes read
Jorge Luis BorgesBorges and I
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1960A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Luis Borges was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on August 24, 1899. Borges hailed from a prominent Argentine family that traced their lineage to British ancestors. He acquired proficiency in English before mastering Spanish. His deep-rooted connection with literature began at a young age, as he delved into the books from his father’s library. It was then that he decided to pursue a career in literature as he grew older. In 1914, Borges embarked on a journey to Geneva, where he achieved a Bachelor of Arts degree from the College de Genève.
Further travels took him to Mallorca and mainland Spain, where he became part of the Ultraist movement. Eventually, in 1921, he returned to Buenos Aires. This homecoming ignited a transformation in Borges as he discovered a new perspective on his city’s beauty. This newfound vision inspired him to create poetry that celebrated Buenos Aires, culminating in his inaugural publication, a volume of poems titled Fervor de Buenos Aires in 1923.
He went on to publish numerous volumes of poems and essays, and even ventured into biography, penning Evaristo Carriego in 1930. His literary journey was marked by a relentless commitment to his craft and a passion for exploring the depths of human experience through his work. Borges then transitioned to the realm of fiction with the publication of Historia universal de la infamia in 1935. Borges is known for his use of fantastical and surreal elements in his stories. He created intricate and dreamlike worlds that challenge conventional reality and question the boundaries between reality and fiction.
Borges was a master of language, and his use of intricate, labyrinthine prose is a defining characteristic of his writing. His stories often play with language and the power of words. In 1938, he assumed a significant role at the Buenos Aires library, where he would spend nine years, though he found little satisfaction or contentment in his duties. The same year his father passed away, Borges suffered a severe head injury that impacted his speech and led to blood poisoning. Nevertheless, he lived for eight more years, dying on June 14, 1986, in Geneva, Switzerland.
These eight years were the most prolific in his literary career. During this time, he authored some of his most famous stories, later compiled in Ficciones, along with a volume of English translations titled The Aleph and Other Stories (1933–1969). Additionally, Borges, in collaboration with another writer, penned detective stories under the pseudonym H. Bustos Domec. The detective stories were collectively titled Seis problemas para Don Isidro Parodi and published in 1942. Borges was deeply interested in philosophy, and his works frequently explore philosophical concepts, particularly those related to metaphysics, identity, and reality. He often used literature as a medium for engaging with complex philosophical ideas.
During World War II, Borges expressed support for the Allies, which led to his dismissal from his library position during Juan Perón’s dictatorship. Subsequently, he relied on lecturing, writing, and editing to sustain himself. In 1952, Borges produced his most esteemed collection of essays, Otras inquisiciones (1937–1952). Following Perón’s overthrow in 1955, Borges was appointed director of the national library, a notable honor. He was also designated as a professor of English and American literature at the University of Buenos Aires.
A debilitating eye condition left Borges completely blind, rendering him unable to compose extensive texts. Instead, he resorted to dictating to his mother, secretaries, or friends. This physical challenge influenced his writing, as he often explored themes of vision, perception, and the limitations of the human senses. Notable works from this period include El hacedor (1960), El libro de los seres imaginarios (1967), El informe de Brodie (1970), and El libro de arena (1975). Many of Borges’s works are self-referential and explore the nature of storytelling and authorship. His fascination with the concept of labyrinths, both literal and metaphorical, is a recurring motif in his writing.
Jorge Luis Borges received the prestigious Formentor Prize in 1961, an international accolade presented for unpublished manuscripts, recognizing his invaluable contributions to 20th-century world literature. His achievements also include the Cervantes Prize and the Jerusalem Prize. His writing and accolades earned him widespread acclaim and admiration during his lifetime. His works have been translated into numerous languages and have had a profound impact on world literature.
Genre Context: Modernism and Postmodernism
Modernism emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a response to the societal and cultural changes brought about by urbanization, industrialization, and the aftermath of World War I. Modernist literature often broke away from traditional narrative forms, delving into the inner workings of the human mind and playfully experimenting with the concepts of time and space.
Following Modernism, Postmodernism emerged in the mid-20th century as a reaction to Modernism and the changing cultural landscape after World War II. Postmodern literature is characterized by a skepticism toward grand narratives, a blurring of fiction and reality, and a self-awareness of the act of storytelling. Metafiction, which involves self-referential and self-aware storytelling; intertextuality, the technique of drawing upon a wide range of literary traditions, mythologies, and cultural references; and deconstruction, which challenges accepted notions of truth and reality, are all hallmarks of Postmodern literature.
Borges was a prominent figure in both the Modernist and Postmodern literary movements. His stories frequently feature complex and fragmented structures, challenging the linear and chronological storytelling conventions. They also explore philosophical and metaphysical themes, such as the nature of authorship and identity. These themes are evident in “Borges and I,” which is a brief yet in-depth reflection on the complex relationship between the public persona (Borges, the writer) and the private self (Borges, the individual).
In addition, Borges’s work exemplifies Postmodern elements. In many of his stories, the narrative itself becomes a subject of exploration. Borges’s writings often contains allusions and connections to other works, such as his mention of Spinoza in “Borges and I.” Finally, labyrinths, mirrors, and timepieces—popular symbols in Postmodernism—often appear in his work, as in his mention of the hourglass and “the games with time and infinity” (Paragraph 2) in “Borges and I.”
Literary Context: Magic Realism in Latin America
Magic realism is a literary style that weaves elements of the fantastical or mythical into an otherwise realistic narrative. This unique storytelling technique is most commonly associated with Latin American literature. In this genre, the fantastical seamlessly blends with everyday reality, the mundane is transformed into the extraordinary, and characters respond to supernatural elements as if nothing is out of the ordinary. Magic realism is frequently viewed as a manifestation of postmodernism due to its inclination toward fragmentation and its emphatic rejection of rational and materialistic conventions, opting instead to push the boundaries beyond the realm of immediate comprehension.
The first documented magic realist in Latin America was Venezuelan writer Arturo Uslar-Pietri, who wrote short stories in the genre in the 1920s and 30s. The literary movement gained prominence in the mid and late-20th century, with Borges considered one of the foundational writers in the genre. His contemporaries included Gabriel García Marquez, the Nobel Prize-winning Colombian author best known for novels like One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) and Love in the Time of Cholera (1981); Alejo Carpentier, a Cuban writer exiled during Bautista’s dictatorship who wrote The Kingdom of this World (1949); and Isabel Allende, who still publishes widely but is best known for her debut novel, The House of the Spirits (1981), a multigenerational family epic that traces the postcolonial transformation of her native Chile.
Borges, in his fiction, delves into various layers of magic realism and surrealism that are intricately interwoven with reality. “Borges and I” divides the self into two distinct characters, providing a separate voice for the inner consciousness, the narrator who is distinct from the author’s public persona. Nonetheless, this narrative remains grounded in realistic details. For instance, the inner self acquires knowledge of his own name by examining the mail, and the story emphasizes the shared passion for hourglasses and maps between the author’s inner self and his public persona. In this story as in others, which incorporate magical details like an infinite library or a peephole through which one can see everything in the universe at once, Borges navigates the boundary between the real and the fantastical.
“Borges and I,” a multifaceted work that has been described as an essay, a short story, a prose poem, and a parable, reflects the author’s commitment to experimentation with form and the exploration of psychological depth. This experimental spirit harkens back to Borges’s origins in the Vanguardia, Ultraist, and Surrealist movements, which laid the foundation for his eclectic and boundary-pushing literary creations.
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