Borges

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Borges Anonymous Sun Apr 12 14:44:29 2020 No.15080241 [Reply] [Original]

Reminder: Borges is even more of an anglo than Marx and he ought to be read in translation. In spite of his upbringing in a hispanophone country and writing in Spanish, he grew up bilingual and drew heavily from English, bringing its grace to Spanish. His first publication was a translation of Oscar Wilde's "The Happy Prince" when he was six. Since this time he would read and translate many more English authors, Chesterton, Whitman, Carlyle, Poe, Kipling &c.. If Borges were truly in the Spanish tradition, what would be his Bible? We would expect a Spanish-language translation (at the least, Biblia Latinoamérica) but no! Instead it's the Authorized Version (aka the King James PBUH)! It's not even a Catholic Bible and to take it a step further, he would even enjoy the 1611 edition. Even the man's politics were distinctly English: a Spencerian anarchist, he called himself. What did the man teach at La Universidad de Buenos Aires? English literature! His Autobiographical Notes were published in English before the Spanish. To think of Borges as a Spanish, Argentine, or Latin American author is to embarrass yourself, nay worse, to make a British Israelite of yourself. (I nearly wrote "Black Israelite" but as we all know that itself is a poor imitation of the British Israelism of John Wilson.) Truly success breeds jealously.

Can you argue with Borges himself?
>I have done most of my reading in English. I read very little in Spanish. I was educated practically in my father's library, and that was compounded of English books so that when I think of the Bible, I think of the King James Bible. When I think of the Arabian Nights I think of Lane's translation or of Captain Burton's translation. When I think of course of Persian literature I think in terms of Browne's Literary History of Persia, and of course of Fitzgerald's and frankly, I remember the first book I read on the history of South America was Prescott's The Conquest of Peru. Yes, and then I fell back on Spanish writers, but I have done most of my reading in English. I find English a far finer language than Spanish.

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/lit/ - Literature