Borges in the world, the world of Borges

Authors

  • Daniel Balderston Universidad de Pittsburgh

Abstract

This article deals with the ways in which Borges (due to his readings and his references) personifies world literature as well as critiques it as an idea. It examines a variety of texts, from his early poetry to the 1951 lecture on the Argentinian writer and tradition to later texts. It analyses Borges’s sceptical stance towards the possibility of world literature, and the different ways in which he undermines it as an idea, while at the same time describing his immense and wide erudition.

Keywords:

Borges, world literature, scepticism, Argentinian literature, erudition