9/3/2023 0 Comments Que es un enigma![]() Certainly it is otherworldly.Īnd yet, even as he writes of “the Spirit’s dark mirrors” and says later in the poem “I have entrusted the writing of these words to a common man / they will never be what I want to say/ but only their shadow” (a sentiment as real for God and man as for poet and translator), Borges infuses his work with a knowing, and sometimes self deprecating humor, and an understanding of the power of words and his place in the scheme of literature Sure, I may be projecting too much of the holy on Jorge Luis Borges, but it has always struck me that his inspired writing was in some way divine. Which is time in succession and no more than an emblem.” I who am the Was, the Is, and the Is To Come ![]() “John I:14” takes biblical inspiration and bends it to encompass Borges’ own approach to verse and story. I could invoke the example of illustrious forerunners… I would rather say that although the difference between prose and verse seems to me superficial, my wish is that this volume be read as a volume of poems.”Īnd the poems that Borges shares are wonderful, in this collection both in his original Spanish and as translated (or as Borges like to say “re-created”) by Thomas di Giovanni. As he explains: “In the present pages, I believe that the forms of prose and verse coexist without a clash. It is, however, very much a book of Borges’ poetry. In Praise of Darkness isn’t strictly a book of poetry there’s prose inside and a short introductory essay about aesthetics. It’s a volume I hadn’t opened in too many years, and prompted by my “ year of poetry ” I was reminded of the mystery and mischief that make Borges such a delight. Ficciones led to Borges’ nonfiction, and then to In Praise of Darkness, a book of poetry that has been kicking along in my life since it sat on the shelf of my dorm room. That Eco could essentially fold Borges’ story “The Library of Babel” into a mystery novel that pulled from sources both classical and modern was a revelation and led me to Borges’ Ficciones. My fondness for Borges began somewhere around the time I first read Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose in a between terms philosophy class and realized that Eco had inserted Borges into the story as the blind librarian of a hidden labyrinth of medieval manuscripts. ![]() The Argentine writer looked blindly over the classroom I shared with students as we marched through literature from Beowulf to Virginia Woolf, from Shelley’s Zastrozzi to Sherlock Holmes. In my first year of teaching, I took a minimalist approach to decorating my classroom I had exactly one thing on the wall, a framed 8 x 10 black and white photograph of Jorge Luis Borges that I’d clipped from The New Yorker magazine.
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