Borges and the realism: the other of the Borgesean works / Borges e o realismo: o outro da literatura borgeana
AUTOR(ES)
Jéssica Aracelli Rocha
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO
2008
RESUMO
This dissertation tries to understand El Otro, a short story by Jorge Luis Borges. In order to achieve this goal, we make an analysis of it and of a secondary group of texts. As the narrative has two autobiographical characters, and the youngest of them seems different from the author and his first books, it is necessary to compare this character with this authors youth works (essays) in relation to realism, engagement, tendency to look for relations between literature and the authors life (called biographism in this paper), and ultraism. The first chapter confirms that the young Borges (1918-1920) does not present these characteristics in his evaluation of literature, except for ultraism. In a later period of his youth (1920-1928), there is ultraism and biographism and some relations with the realistic way of literary construction. However, there were realism, engagement, biographism and ultraism in the Argentine literary context of the twenties. The three first can be associated with the writers in the Boedo group. However, the story alludes to Modernism too; so it is possible to understand that the young character in the short story is related to the generation of Argentine writers in the twenties. The reading of the short story shows that it produces a dialog between the borgesean literature and the Argentine writers of the twenties, including the young Borges. The dialog and the narrative resources reveal that realism is criticized. These two representations can be read as two generic ways to deal with literature. So, it is possible to state, that in Nota sobre Walt Whitman, there is an opposition to the way boedists dealt with biographism. As Borges second youth period does not present biographism, we affirm that this essay captures a transformation. Therefore, we can confirm that the controversy between the groups, Florida and Boedo, may have been an important moment between Borges youth books and his well known works. In his preface Domingos F. Sarmiento: Facundo, new objections to realism and engagement can be found. In the first chapter it is asserted that Borges fights realism since the thirties. Thus, if the preface was written in 1975, we can assert that this authors critical texts are in dialog with realism. The essay La Postulación de la Realidad shows the borgesean classification of literature: the classical way and the romantic way of writing. Thus, we verify the existing parallel between this essay and the short story analyzed. This text shows that the romantic way has a connection with the second period of Borges youth works, while the classical way is related to his mature works. Other borgesean short story, El Milagro Secreto, uses one of the classical techniques to generate verisimilitude, but this is a technique commonly used by realists too. Therefore, this story shows that there is a contact point linking the borgesean works and realism. This same technique keeps a final objection to realism.
ASSUNTO(S)
realismo borges borges verossimilhança engagement mimesis mimesis engajamento realism biografismo biographism verisimilitude
