U. S. A.
Dos Passos trilogy of novels, 1938
Dos Passos trilogy of novels, 1938
owner of piston factory in Bustos Domecq story
character in Bustos Domecq story, nicknamed El Indio
town in Jaén province in Andalusia
Heiinrich Heine
A sociological essay written by Héctor Saenz y Quesada.
Excerpt from Geschichte der indischen Literatur (1905) by M. Winternitz.
Jarry play, 1896
the Ucraine
Argentinian historian, and fomer director of the Museo Histórico de Luján
city in Uttar Pradesh state in India
Parodi: “la producción Ufa”: durante el nacionalsocialismo alemán, 1933-1942, la productora cinematográfica UFA (Universum Film Aktiengesellschaft) pasó a depender del Ministerio de Propaganda, bajo las órdenes de Joseph Goebbels. entre otras actividades −que abarcaban la literatura, la prensa, el teatro, la radio, las artes plásticas−, también se realizaban películas documentales y noticiarios sobre diversos aspectos de la cultura alemana, que eran enviados al exterior con fines de propaganda. En Argentina, esos noticiarios se exhibían en los cines antes de la proyección del programa del día.
La duquesa fea, Leon Feuchtwanger, 1923
Italian nobleman, count of Donoratico, c. 1220-1289, here as a character in Dante's Inferno
Fishburn and Hughes: "A nobleman elected mayor of Pisa in 1284. A supporter alternately of the rival Guelph and Ghibelline factions, Ugolino was engaged to make a peace treaty with Florence but was accused of treason when he appeared to have conceded too much. In 1289 Archbishop Ruggieri, whose alliance he had sought, had him imprisoned with his two sons and two grandchildren in a tower, where the whole family was left to die of starvation. The story is related in the Divine Comedy. Dante places Ugolino among the traitors in one of the most dramatic and pathetic episodes of the poem (Inferno, Canto 33). He appears buried in ice, together with Archbishop Ruggieri who betrayed his friendship: both are sentenced to eternal damnation in the same circle. Lifting his mouth from Ruggieri's skull which he is gnawing, Ugolino describes first the ominous dream they all had in the tower, the night before their prison door was nailed for ever, then his anguish as the children around him beg for food, and finally their death agonies and his macabre last hours when, blind with weakness, he cries out their names, feeling for their bodies in the dark. Ugolino's own story ends with the line: 'Poscia piú che'l dolor, poté il digiuno' ('Then fasting had more force than grief). Borges, in 'El falso problema de Ugolino' (Ens. dantescos, 105-11), speculates on the possible ambiguity of this ending, questioning whether it means that Ugolino died not of grief but of hunger, or that he gave in to the torment of hunger and ate the flesh of his dead children. Borges suggests that this uncertainty, Ugolino's 'two possible agonies', is part of Dante's design, for ambiguity is the condition of art." (202)
German poet and philologist, 1787-1862
character in Borges story
Gothic bishop, translator of the Bible into Gothic, c.311-383, also known as Vulfilas, Wufila and Lobezno
Ulysses or Odysseus, king of Ithaca, husband of Penelope and father of Telemachus, main character in the Odyssey, also in poems by Dante, Tennyson, etc.
Fishburn and Hughes: "A mythical hero, one of the Greek heroes at the siege of Troy and the central character of the Odyssey. The Approach to Al-Mu’tasim: Ulysses is also the title of a novel by James Joyce, first published in Paris in 1922 and, for reasons of censorship, in the USA and England only in 1937. Borges, who translated the last page (from Molly Bloom's monologue) for the magazine Proa, claimed to have been the first Spanish speaker to have 'ventured into Joyce's novel', of which he was not always appreciative. In an early collection of essays since withdrawn from publication (Inq.) he wrote that the novel, whose action stretches over the period of a single day, takes many days to read, adding that he was not counting the number of siestas this would induce. At the time Borges wrote 'The Approach to Almotasim' (1935), English readers had difficulty obtaining a copy and had to rely on a study by Joyce's friend Stuart Gilbert, entitled James Joyce's Ulysses (1930). In a discussion on the extreme system of causality which operates in literature, Borges mischievously cites as illustration 'el examen del libro expositive de Gilbert, o en su defecto, de la vertiginosa novela' ('the examination of Gilbert's explanatory work or, failing that, the vertiginous novel itself, (TL 81). Ulysses describes the wanderings of the main character, Leopold Bloom, with chapters arranged on the pattern of Homer's Odyssey; but Joyce later removed these headings as too obvious, hoping that the connection would not be entirely missed provided Gilbert kept the Homeric titles in his book. Apart from discussing The Episodes under headings - Telemachus, Nestor, Proteus, Calypso and so on - Gilbert devotes a section of his introduction to parallels between Ulysses and the Odyssey. He points to similarities of style, such as the adaptation of voice to different speakers, a fusion of dialects, accuracy of description (neither work engaging in 'vain tautology'), and he observes that both works hellenise the Semitic world. See Argos." (202-03)
Parodi: “Ulises, hijo de Laertes, de la simiente de Zeus”: la mención de Ulises va aquí acompañada por una fórmula fija, recurrente en la Ilíada y, con variantes, en la Odisea.
Gonzalo Pérez's version of Homer's Odyssey, 1550
Borges story in El libro de arena
character in Borges story
northern Ireland
Ema Risso Platero story in Arquitecturas del insomnio
some of these references are to a Buenos Aires newspaper, but the early ones are to a newspaper of the same name in Palma de Mallorca
Parodi: “Última hora. Diario independiente de la tarde” fue un vespertino porteño fundado en marzo de 1908 por Adolfo Rothkoff. Dice Sylvia Saitta: “Con Última Hora nace un nuevo estilo periodístico (artículos breves, irreverentes, salpicados de coloquialismos)”, y cita de la Guía periodística argentina: “Su jocosidad y su sátira no tienen límites y es inagotable el buen humor y la felicidad de los términos de sus redactores, los que tienen un don especial para asimilar el argot de todas las clases sociales y las características de todos los tipos bonaerenses, tanto individual como colectivamente. No respeta nada ni a nadie, y su pluma y su lápiz son capaces de motejarse a sí mismos. Es, en suma, un diario alegre, que se ha formado un público lector especial” (36). Añade Saítta que Última Hora “incorpora la sátira y el humor gráfico a la crónica política y diaria. Las secciones escritas en lunfardo, como la página de policiales, recuperan anécdotas en forma de diálogos ficcionales de los protagonistas de la noticia, con alto grado de ironía. […] Asimismo, es el primer diario que explicita su concepción de periodismo profesional al inaugurar, en noviembre de 1909, la primera escuela de periodistas de la Argentina” (Regueros 36−37). También T. Mascarenhas, el narrador de “El signo”, se presenta como “corresponsal viajero” de Última Hora y Bustos Domecq, el “reportero de artes y letras” del diario, colaboró en el suplemento literario.
Julián del Casal ode
ancient name for a northern island, perhaps Iceland
Burton, 1875
Papini’s short story from Il tragico quotidiano (1906).
del Mazo poem, 1910
Menén Desleal story
Spanish ultraísta magazine, 1921-22
Fishburn and Hughes: "Latin for 'beyond sunrise and the Ganges': an adaption of the line 'usque Auroram et Gangen' ('as far as sunrise and the Ganges') from the opening lines of Juvenal's tenth satire. The theme of the satire is that throughout the known world 'only a few know what is really good' and 'can see their way through the fog of deception'. Ambition for power and authority is based on the mistaken belief that they last, while in both the present and the past the lives of the great and powerful have shown that such privileges are fickle and short-lived. Only virtues are worth desiring. Given that India is frequently used by Borges as a metaphor for the universe, by replacing 'usque' with 'ultra' and extending the spatial allusion of the original verse the narrator adds further connotations of remoteness to the land in which the story is set, with implications of infinity." (202)
son of king Naga in the Mahabharata
Joyce's novel, 1922
Fishburn and Hughes: "A mythical hero, one of the Greek heroes at the siege of Troy and the central character of the Odyssey. The Approach to Al-Mu’tasim: Ulysses is also the title of a novel by James Joyce, first published in Paris in 1922 and, for reasons of censorship, in the USA and England only in 1937. Borges, who translated the last page (from Molly Bloom's monologue) for the magazine Proa, claimed to have been the first Spanish speaker to have 'ventured into Joyce's novel', of which he was not always appreciative. In an early collection of essays since withdrawn from publication (Inq.) he wrote that the novel, whose action stretches over the period of a single day, takes many days to read, adding that he was not counting the number of siestas this would induce. At the time Borges wrote 'The Approach to Almotasim' (1935), English readers had difficulty obtaining a copy and had to rely on a study by Joyce's friend Stuart Gilbert, entitled James Joyce's Ulysses (1930). In a discussion on the extreme system of causality which operates in literature, Borges mischievously cites as illustration 'el examen del libro expositive de Gilbert, o en su defecto, de la vertiginosa novela' ('the examination of Gilbert's explanatory work or, failing that, the vertiginous novel itself, (TL 81). Ulysses describes the wanderings of the main character, Leopold Bloom, with chapters arranged on the pattern of Homer's Odyssey; but Joyce later removed these headings as too obvious, hoping that the connection would not be entirely missed provided Gilbert kept the Homeric titles in his book. Apart from discussing The Episodes under headings - Telemachus, Nestor, Proteus, Calypso and so on - Gilbert devotes a section of his introduction to parallels between Ulysses and the Odyssey. He points to similarities of style, such as the adaptation of voice to different speakers, a fusion of dialects, accuracy of description (neither work engaging in 'vain tautology'), and he observes that both works hellenise the Semitic world. See Argos." (202-03)
Tennyson poem, 1842
Story attribtued to George Loring Frost, from Memorabilia (1923).
Short play by Elena Garro and book of the same name that includes different short plays (1958).
verse from Huidobro's Ecuatorial
A possible allusion to Edward Jorden and Peter Turner, with whom he reputedly had conversations.
Spanish novelist, poet, philosopher and critic, 1864-1936, author of Niebla, Vida de don Quijote y Sancho, El sentimiento trágico de la vida and numerous other works
Hermann Broch novel, 1933
May Sinclair collection, 1923
Stowe novel, 1852
Parodi: novela abolicionista de la escritora norteamericana Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896), publicada en 1852. César Paladión escribe La cabaña del Tío Tom en el período 1911-1919. Mencionada también en “Loomis” §14.
Wright collection of stories, 1938
Hauptmann play, 1906
Stevenson's epitaph: see Requiem
Stevenson, poetry, 1887.
Sternberg film, 1927
Borges story in El libro de arena
Wells novel
Stefan Zweig novel, 1939
Dunsany, 1916
fabulous animal
the Union, the north in the US Civil War
Parodi: una institución creada para coordinar los servicios de correos nacionales públicos de los países de América que la integraban. La Argentina fue miembro de la Unión desde la fundación, en 1911; actualmente la integran 27 países. Tras recibir diversas denominaciones, desde 1990 se la conoce como Unión Postal de las Américas, España y Portugal.
Soviet Union, 1922-1991, now Russia and a number of republics. See also Rusia
modern art group in London, founded by Paul Nash in 1933
Fishburn and Hughes: "A political ideology of the Southern Provinces (later Argentina) which inspired the Wars of Independence from Spain. Its main aim was to develop the supremacy of Buenos Aires at the expense of the interior provinces, whose erstwhile function, to serve the decaying mining centres of Alto Peru, had led them to political conservatism and economic stagnation. The Unitarian leaders were cosmopolitan and free-thinking. Most of them were educated in Europe and drew inspiration from the latest philosophical and political ideas of their time, which they freely imported to Argentina without considering their adaptability to a different historical and geographical context. In their admiration for everything European, the Unitarians despised the criollismo of the Federals, whose adherence to Hispanic traditionalism they regarded as retrograde, not to say barbaric. The more idealistic Unitarian leaders wished to unite the country under one banner. Developing an economic policy based on trade with Europe, they sought to Europeanise the country and its population, making Buenos Aires, as the gateway to Europe, the country's nerve centre and dominant seat of government. But unlike some Federalist leaders they proposed this policy in the interests of the nation as a whole, so that all the provinces would share in the wealth produced. Under the dictatorship of Rosas, Unitarians were persecuted, exiled or assassinated, and though their opposition was silenced their policies were implemented by their arch-enemy Rosas, who brought the anarchical provinces under the rule of Buenos Aires. When in 1852 Rosas was defeated, the main remaining problem for the Unitarians was the status of the province of Buenos Aires. The Federation of Provinces did not wish to acknowledge the supremacy of Buenos Aires, and the Federalists of Buenos Aires did not wish to be integrated into the Federation and share the revenue of the port with other less favoured provinces. Fighting continued, but the supremacy of Unitarianism was firmly established in 1880 with the election of the Unitarian candidate, General Roca. Though existing governments may have been brought down by action from the provinces, Unitarianism, as a general policy, has not met any long-lasting challenge." (203)
Boston University.
Argentina's major university, where Borges taught English literature in the fifties and sixties
University of London
private university in Bogotá, Colombia
Fishburn and Hughes: "The National University of Bahía Blanca, in the Southern part of the Province of Buenos Aires (translated in the English version as ’our sister university to the south’ (CF 390)." (203-04)
in Austin, Texas
universe, see also Cosmos
Arabic treatise
Orczy detective novel
German writer, 1885-1970
Nietzsche
German song, here used as the name of a bar in Buenos Aires
Parodi: “era el taita de Unter den Linden”: ‘taita’, se emplea aquí con el significado de ‘matón’, un individuo temido y respetado por su coraje. Hasta 1949, Unter den Linden fue la calle más famosa de Berlín.
Spengler book on the decline of the Western world and the rise of Asia and Africa, 2 vols., 1918-1922
US poet and critic, 1885-1977
mathematician, character in Borges story
Fishburn and Hughes: "A fictional character; in the context perhaps an allusion to Sir Raymond Unwin (1863-1940), the English architect who laid out the first English garden city." (204)
Bottacchiari, 1936
Papini’s work, 1918.
Papini, 1913
El hombre secreto, Nardelli book on Pirandello, 1932
meditative treatise attached to each of the Vedas
fabulous creatures of North America
city in Sweden, seat of ancient university
Fishburn and Hughes: "A city in Sweden, north of Stockholm, the seat of the oldest Swedish university, founded in 1477." (204)
imaginary region in Middle East, subject of a famous article in the Anglo-American Cyclopaedia
Fishburn and Hughes: "Arabic for 'the greatest': an imaginary land situated vaguely in Asia Minor and mysteriously referred to in only one copy of the Anglo-American Cyclopaedia. See Tlön. There is a place named Uqbar in Algeria and Uqbara in Iraq, on which the fictional land may or may not have been based." (204)
Chaldean city in Mesopotamia
Fishburn and Hughes: "A general term for a primary linguistic family of the eastern hemisphere. In its morphology there are few relational elements; it is an order of speech based on the use of suffixes attached to unmodified roots. For harmony the vowels of the suffixes are made to blend with the vowel of the root. The verb is not clearly differentiated from the noun. Some of these features are repeated in the southern language of the imaginary planet Tlön." (204)
Ural mountains in Russia
woman mentioned in poem by Gaspar Camerarius
character in Bustos Domecq story
Parodi: joven poeta. En 1938, cuando aún era un desconocido, obtuvo el premio del certamen literario de la Editorial Destiempo; para Destiempo, cf. infra §8.
town in northern Spain
character in Bustos Domecq story
Parodi: el narrador del cuento. Sus conocidos lo llaman ‘Catanga” o “Catanga Chica’. Según Gobello (Blanqueo), ‘catanga’ proviene de akatánkka, término quechua que designa a un escarabajo coleóptero que vive en el estiércol, de ahí su significado de ‘excremento’, ‘zurullo’, que aplicado en especial a las personas de piel parda o negra.
town in the province of Buenos Aires
Fishburn and Hughes: "A place in the province of Entre Ríos, After 1980 and the arrival of the railway, many European immigrants settled here." (204)
the Lady of the Lake in Amadís de Gaula
of Merlo, character in Borges story
character in Borges story
street in Buenos Aires
Argentine general, politician and president, 1868-1933
Argentine military officer, 1816-1893
character in Blake's Prophetic Books
Blake prophetic poem, 1794
Barlach study, 1899
character in Borges story
Fishburn and Hughes: "From the German ur, 'primordial', 'earliest', and Mann: a fictitious character related to a saying of Martin Buber. According to his commentator, Walter Kaufman, Buber was fond of the prefix ur because it opened words up to endless possibilities of regression, such as Urgrossvater, meaning 'great-grandfather' and Ururgrossvater meaning 'great-greatgrandfather'. Borges too was fascinated by the theme of infinite regress." (204)
Browne treatise on death, 1658
Fishburn and Hughes: "A treatise by Sir Thomas Browne (1658), written in the form of a discourse inspired by the discovery of ancient sepulchral urns in Norfolk. Following the discovery of this unsuspected 'subterranean world', Browne praises the custom of commending man's ashes to the anonymity of an urn 'not much unlike the Urns of our nativity', as opposed to the fallacy of monuments and the 'folly of posthumous memory'. The discourse is illustrated with a variety of classical examples and learned references. The writing is elegant, rich, highly rhythmical and poetic. Together with Bioy Casares, Borges translated into Spanish chapter 5, which was published in the literary magazine Sur (January 1944, 15-26). The use of Quevedian relates to the Latinate structure of Browne's sentences and the striking association of images and conceits which make Urn Burial an eminent example of baroque style." (205)
Banchs book of sonnets, 1911
tribe in Borges story
monster that devours its own tail
Scottish writer, 1611-60, author of Trissotetras, Logopandecteision and Ekskubalauron, and translator of Rabelais
street in Buenos Aires
Argentine general, politician and president, 1801-70
Fishburn and Hughes: "President of the Argentinian Confederation between 1854 and 1860. In 1836 Urquiza joined the Federalists and was placed by Juan Manuel de Rosas on the Uruguayan border. During the next few years he was engaged in several battles against the Unitarians, under the command of the Uruguayan leader Fructuoso Rivera. In 1845, at India Muerta, Urquiza finally defeated Rivera and broke with Rosas, whom he defeated at the battle of Caseros in 1852. Now President, he strove to bring Buenos Aires, then governed by the staunch porteño autonomist Mitre, back into the Confederation. He defeated Mitre in 1859, but Mitre's forces retaliated in 1861 and a treaty was signed. Urquiza retired as Governor of Entre Ríos, while Mitre, the first President of the Argentine Republic with Buenos Aires as capital, brought about the organisation Urquiza had desired. The Other Death: it was natural for the gauchos of Entre Ríos to cheer Urquiza, the caudillo of the home province. See Cagancha." (205)
Parodi: Justo José de Urquiza (1801-1870) fue un militar y político argentino nacido y muerto en Entre Ríos que actuó durante el más de medio siglo de guerras civiles y luchas entre caudillos provinciales. Urquiza fue gobernador de la provincia de Entre Ríos desde 1841 y presidente de la Confederación Argentina entre 1854 y 1860. Opositor al gobierno de Juan Manuel de Rosas (1793-1877) −el caudillo de Buenos Aires que controló al país entre 1835 y 1852− en 1841 Urquiza organizó para combatirlo un ejército de voluntarios, al que se unió Ricardo López Jordán (cf. infra §35). Entre los episodios de las guerras civiles que enfrentaron a los llamados ‘federales’ y los ‘unitarios’ o centralistas, se cuenta el pacto de Urquiza con el gobierno nacional en 1870, al que siguió la llamada rebelión jordanista y el asesinato de Urquiza en su residencia de Concepción del Uruguay (cf. infra §37), un crimen que fue atribuido a partidarios de López Jordán. Tres días después de la muerte de Urquiza, López Jordán asumió el gobierno de la provincia.
Fishburn and Hughes: "From German ur, 'promordial' and Sprache, 'language' - primaeval, original language: the term used in modern linguistics to indicate a hypothetical prototype of language constructed from the common characteristics of early known forms of speech." (205)
Olof Gigon study, 1945
friend of Emma Zunz in Borges story
country, sometimes called República Oriental or Banda Oriental
Fishburn and Hughes: "One of the smallest countries in South America, named after the river. The name, from Guarani, means either 'the river of shellfish' or 'the water where the Uru birds come from'. Uruguay gained statehood much later than Argentina. In Borges it often stands for a more colonial society, its gaucho and criollo heritage more intact. The Dead Man: In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the frontiers between northeastern Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil were hot-beds of smuggling. Uruguayan raids into Brazil's province of Rio Grande do Sul were the immediate provocation of the Paraguayan War (1865-8). See Banda Oriental." (205)
river dividing Uruguay and Argentina
place where the Buddha spoke to a thousand hermits
Eliot essay, 1933
Chesterton, 1920.
southernmost city in Argentina
Parodi: 1) “don Ushuaia”: Ushuaia es el nombre de la ciudad capital de Tierra del Fuego, la más austral del mundo, donde desde 1904 hasta 1947 funcionó el ‘Penal de Ushuaia’, una cárcel destinada a delincuentes comunes y también a presos políticos.
2) capital de Tierra del Fuego, la ciudad más austral del país; cf. Modelo v §4.
Venezuelan writer, 1906-2001
character in the Bandamanna Saga
Russian mystic, 1878-1947, author of Tertium Organum
character in Bustos Domecq story
Parodi: es el oyente del discurso del narrador, quien permanece varias páginas innombrado hasta que se revela que se trata de un tal Urbistondo (cf. infra ii §42).
character in Layomon's Brut
More political essay, 1516
Borges story in El libro de arena
city in the Netherlands
Fishburn and Hughes: "A city in the central Netherlands renowned for its fourteenth-century cathedral, university, sunken canals and gold and silver museum." (206)
character in Norse mythology
ruined Maya city in Yucatan peninsula in Mexico
Mohammed Öz-Beg (also Ozbeg or Uzbeg), 1282-1341, sultan, khan of the Golden Horde