On The Literature Thoughts Of Jorge Luis Borges

As a world-famous Argentine writer, critic and translator, Jorge Luis Borges (1899—1986), second to Cervantes, is not only recognized as the greatest Spanish writer who greatly influenced the 20th century world literature, but also the important writer who won the Latin American literary world concerned.In his life, Borges wrote many poems, prose and fictions, which have had important impacts on today's world literary history. His literary thoughts are very rich and influenced many world-famous writers, thinkers and philosophers. Therefore, the study of Borges'literary thoughts will have important practical significance and value.In the world, Borges'study began many years ago and has formed a certain scale. In 1979, Borges'works were firstly translated and introduced to Chinese readers. Since then, three decades have passed, the studies on Borges are numerous and brilliant. Especially, with the Chinese versions of his complete works published, more and more graduate students choose Borges as their dissertation topics. Unfortunately, there is no dissertation for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy so far in our country and there is no one dissertation studying on his literary thoughts comprehensively and systematically. This dissertation attempts to clarify the complete view of his literary thoughts, to demonstrate the significance and value of his literary thoughts by basing upon the available research achievements in China, at the same time, by combining with his originals as well as the related materials abroad. Therefore, this work can enrich the studies on works of Borges in China. We hope this dissertation will be helpful to the exploration of Borges'literary thoughts.This paper adopts the multiple perspectives such as the literary psychology, psychoanalysis, text reading and narratology. This paper attaches importance to the theoretical analysis and empirical materials. In addition to the investigation of his woks, the author also employs other related materials such as his biography, letters etc. for a comprehensive study. At the same time, the author endeavors to display the content, significance and value of Borges'literary thoughts from multi-side, multi-angles and multi-layered by using endless backtracking and reduction. Moreover, the author emphasizes the contrast and analysis to reveal the charm of Borges'literary thoughts. For example, the author introduces Jean Paul Sartre as the contrastive object in Chapter One, thus demonstrating the profoundness and greatness of Borges'literary thoughts. In the specific discussion, the author will adopt the method of argue in circles to reveal the close link of his literary thoughts with literary creation as well as theory and practice from different perspectives and aspects, giving prominence to one side of him as a genius and creative man of letters.In the introduction, it focuses mainly on the significant value of Borges'literary thoughts, carding the research survey of his literary thoughts, thus posing the main content, ways, creative points and the logic framework of this study.Chapter One mainly shows the formation and development of Borges'literary thoughts. In my study, we divide his literary thoughts into five phases. The first phase is from 1899to 1914, which mainly disputes Borges'childhood reading and his"creation of a writer's dream", focusing on how he has become a writer. The second phase starts from 1914 to 1921, which mainly presents his pursuit of study and making friends as well as his true literary road under the influence of contemporary western philosophy and literature. The third phase begins in 1921 and ends in 1930, which mainly probes his function in Argentine extreme literary movement as a spokesman of Argentine extreme literary movement as well as his achievement in the relevant theories and his poetry creation. The forth phase initiates from 1931 to 1960, which mainly argues the establishment of his status as a literary master enjoying world-renowned fame. Based on all mentioned above, this work illustrates the development of Borges'literary thoughts from classicism to expressionism, from extremism to modernism, from fantastic doctrine to realism. However, this literary thought course is simply a general outline. As a matter of fact, Borges'literary thoughts are very complicated.Chapter Two argues the philosophy basis and religious origin of Borges'literary thoughts. Borges is a man of letters who collects abundantly the merits of the numerous family and his literary thoughts are influenced by the Greek philosophy as well as the philosophy of Berkeley, Hume, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Meanwhile, his literary thoughts are also influenced by Gnosticism, Kabbalah, Sufism, Buddhism as well as the mystical Chinese culture, such as Taoism. Under the influence of these thoughts, Borges has formed the idealistic thoughts and the mystical literary thoughts. If we analyze the relationship between Borges'literary thoughts with the above-mentioned thoughts carefully, it will be beneficial for us to understand and comprehend Borges'literary thoughts more clearly.Chapter One and Chapter Two constitute the first volume of this dissertation, which mainly focus on the developmental process and theoretical origins of his literary thoughts. Therefore, it lays the foundation of studying the content, contribution, effect and significance of Borges'literary thoughts in the second volume.Chapter Three mainly analyzes the starting point of Borges'literary thoughts. Borges holds that"The world is a mystery". The confusion of the cosmos, the world and the life urges him to ponder a lot. Plekhanov once said that the comprehension of life is the foundation of conducting all the aesthetic judgment. Therefore, it needs firstly analyzing Borges'understanding of real life. And that his understanding of reality is dialectical and dichotomous. He confirms the objectivity of real life, opposes to making life and literature contradictory, and believes that art is one part of life. Simultaneously, he deems that the spiritual world of human beings is illusory. He makes the understanding of reality reduce to the literary mirror images, which jointly convey his thoughts about reality. In his works, the cosmos is immensely, which is a"Babel library"; the world is illusory, which is a"telong"maze; the existence of human being is a mystery, a dream.Chapter Four mainly discusses topics on Borges and his works. He holds that a poet is a creator and a writer is"a person who dreams constantly". His dream and creation provide good examples for Freud's theory on"writers and daydreaming", meanwhile, promoting, enriching and developing the theory of"writers and daydreaming". Borges has described a variety of dreams, which have different origins. Borges is often obsessed by nightmares, which have provided him with inspiration, materials and drive for his creation.Chapter Five chiefly focuses on the innovation of literary notion by Borges. He assumes that literature is a"serious game". In his theory, literary games for one thing are imitative games, for another are fantastic games. The objects what he has played with are not only literary images but also philosophic games such as time, mazes and so on. In addition, he also believes that literature is a"guided dream". Concerning with the way of thinking, he places emphasis on imagination and artistic thinking, claiming that"dreaming mindfully". On the writing style, he puts forward the writing form of"island", opposing that writers should not interfere with the works, and demands that writers should sticks to the dream and imagination, letting"the theme look for writers".Chapter Six primarily talks about the theory on books and works by Borges. In his view, books are"the extension of memory and images"; works are the fictional encyclopedias, which are the metaphors of the cosmos, the world and the life. His aesthetic ideal is the pursuit of the immortality and eternality of the universe. For all this, his works have the quality of"timelessness".Chapter Seven mostly demonstrates Borges'contribution to the literary form. These contributions are as following: the concise language style, the literary style connecting reality and fiction together as well as the creation and richness of literary genres.Chapter Eight largely displays the literary narrative theory by Borges and his works. The immortality in his works what he thinks is narration. The critics also deem that one of his important contributions is his enrichment and development to the creation techniques. He lays his literary narration basis on intetextuality, by applying the postmodern literary techniques such as imitation, parody, collage etc., furthermore, slacking the traditional narration. Meanwhile, his emphasis on the infinite narration and dialogue in his narration, which makes his narration have the tendency to the return to Plato.Hence, this dissertation has systematically and in depth probed the content, contribution and significance of Borges'literary thoughts from content to form and from theory to practice.Finally, as part of my conclusion, Chapter Nine principally deals with the influence and enlightenment of Borges'literary thoughts to western post-modernism and Chinese writers, therefore, to establish the status, and value of his literary thoughts.Borges'literary thoughts are abundant and unique, with the characteristics of speculation and innovation, which constantly urge people to study and explore them.