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- Lavender, Philip, 1981
(author)
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“La Bofetada,” Serkland and the Encyclopedia Britannica: Borges Notes on Old Norse Literature
- 2021
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In: Variaciones Borges. - 1396-0482. ; 52, s. 33-49
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This article presents new research on a notebook which contains notes by Jorge Luis Borges and his mother Leonor, written in 1950, at a significant moment in Borges' intellectual development. The notebook contains outlines for a series of lectures on Old English and Old Norse literature and bears a strong resemblance to Borges' first book-length publication on Germanic literature, “Antiguas literaturas germánicas”, which appeared just a year later in 1951. By comparing the notebook with the published work, a great deal is revealed about Borges' working method. For one thing, the notebook contains more detailed citations of Borges's sources, which allow us to see which texts he made use of in places where no reference is provided in “Antiguas literatures germánicas”. Moreover, we can compare certain scenes from saga literature, such as the famous slap from “Njáls saga” (“La bofetada”), which Borges had printed separately previously, then jotted down in the notebook and finally published in “Antiguas literatures gérmanicas”. The small differences in the three versions of the anecdote tell us about how Borges's relation to saga literature was changing over the years when he was going blind and developing his passion for Nordic literature.
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