Jorge Luis Borges—Lover of Labyrinths: A Heideggerian Critique

Abstract

Borges is, above all else, a lover of labyrinths, a contemporary Daedalus, constructing an intricate world in which reality gives way to unreality, and unreality, in turn, becomes real. His is a world in which all paths turn back upon themselves; there is no escape:

They knew it, the fervent pupils of Pythagoras: that stars and men revolve in a cycle;. . .; this writing hand will be born from the same womb; and bitter armies will contrive their doom. (The philologist Nietzsche made this very point) It returns, the concave dark of Anaxagoras; in my human flesh, eternity keeps recurring, and an endless poem, remembered or still in the writing They knew it, the fervent pupils of Pythagoras. . .; ¹