pablo brescia and jorges luis borges by k. millikan
DESCRIPTION
K. Millikan's summary of Pablo Brescia's article, "A Superior Magic," on Literary Politics and the Rise of the Fantastic in Latin American Fiction (with particular emphasis on Jorges Luis Borges)TRANSCRIPT
A “SUPERIOR MAGIC”: LITERARY POLITICS AND THE RISE OF THE FANTASTIC IN LATIN AMERICAN FICTION
PABLO BRESCIA
History of Fantastic Literature
Colonial Era• Pre-Hispanic cosmogonies/belief systems• European colonizers mix of Medieval moral grounding and
Renaissance enterprising
Nineteenth Century• Fantastic becomes codified but still only on the margins of literary world• Realist and Naturalist novel• Regional fiction1930-1950 Fantastic
BORGES’ READING CODE
INTERNATIONALOPEN
HEDONISTIC
“The fact that an Argentine can write about a German version of a Russian translation of stories imagined in
Turkistan speaks about the superior magic of these tales. It emphasizes the multiplicity of time and space
and is almost an invitation to metaphysics”
-- Jorge Luis Borges, August 1926, in the newspaper La Prensa, Borges reviewed the anthology Stories from Turkistan