Abstract
The concluding chapter divides Borges’ medievalism into three epochs of his life, beginning with the last. In the last 15 years of his life, perhaps influenced by Maria Kodama, Borges prepared some quite authoritative and intriguing texts, no longer adapting Old English and Old Norse into Spanish or revisiting ideas in his own work, but now translating closely and accurately. In his middle years, Borges approached the Germanic medieval as something of a scholar and thinker, preparing several different analyses of this material, revivifying it in a modernized bestiary, and writing many poems and short stories based on medieval ideas or partaking of medievalist motifs. Finally, in his youth and young adulthood, Borges engaged largely in knowledge of the English medieval, writing many reviews of medievalist and medieval texts, and beginning his lifelong work on the kenning.
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Notes
See, for example, the many review pieces (which reveal a Borges highly knowledgeable about science fiction, detective novels, and modern British and American literature) in Jorge Luis Borges, Obras completas 1975–1988. (Barcelona: Emecé, 1996);
see especially “Santa Juana de Arco” (Saint Joan of Arc), originally published November 27, 1936, pp. 226–227; the review of Frank Ernest Hill, The Canterbury Tales, A New Rendering from February 5, 1937, pp. 252–253; two discussions of Lord Dunsany, the first April 30, 1937, p. 283, and the second September 2, 1938, p. 386; and the review of H.G. Wells, Brynhild on 29 October 1937 p. 327.
See Jorge Luis Borges, with collaboration of Maria Kodama, Atlas (Buenos Aires, Editorial Sudamericana, 1984), and Atlas, Jorge Luis Borges, in collaboration with Maria Kodama, trans. and annotated by Anthony Kerrigan (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1985).
See Martin S. Stabb, Borges Revisited (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991), p. 99.
“The Aleph” in Jorge Luis Borges, The Aleph and other Stories 1933–1969. Ed. and trans. by Norman Thomas di Giovanni and Jorge Luis Borges (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1970), pp. 15–30.
See Borges at Eighty: Conversations. Ed. Willis Barnstone (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), p. 3. The same thing occurs at pp. 106–107, when Borges refers to his loss of sight in 1955, his decision to work with students to learn Old English, various words and a sentence that they loved. He finishes with the statement that “You begin with Old English, and, if you’re lucky, you achieve Old Norse.” Barnstone responds with questions on fame. Only in chapter io, when Borges takes questions from the audience, does one member ask him to speak more about Old English—and he does, at some length (pp. 150–151).
See Jorge Luis Borges, The Perpetual Race of Achilles and the Tortoise. Trans. Esther Allen, Suzanne Jill Levine and Eliot Weinberger (London: Penguin, 2010). “Blindness” is translated by Weinberger, pp. 111–126, ending the book; the section on Borges and Old English is pp. 116–119, quotation is p. 118. Elsewhere in the volume appears Borges’ paper on “The Innocence of Layamon,” pp. 82–87.
See Jorge Luis Borges, Borges: Obras, Resenas y Traducciones Inéditas. Colaboraciones de Jorge Luis Borges en la Revista Multicolor de los Sábados del diario Crítica, 1933–1934. Compiled by Irma Zangara (Buenos Aires: Editorial Atlántica, 1995). pp. 39–45.
See Jorge Luis Borges, Textos Recobrados 1931–1955 (Barcelona: Emecé Editores, 2002), pp. 170–179. Originally published in Sol y Luna 1 (1938).
See Michel Zink, The Enchantment of the Middle Ages. Trans. Jane Marie Todd (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), p. 23.
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© 2014 M.J. Toswell
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Toswell, M.J. (2014). Borges’ Medievalism. In: Borges the Unacknowledged Medievalist: Old English and Old Norse in His Life and Work. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Pivot, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137444479_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137444479_6
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