The player, the sleeper, the creator, the narrator : The work of Jorge Luis Borges from the perspective of romantic irony
Abstract
The article tries to offer a reading of Borges' fiction through the theory of romantic irony. First, it briefly outlines the ""history of irony"", beginning with the approach of Plato's Socrates, continuing with the late antiquity and its mostly rhetorical interpretation of irony as a means of expressing a thought through its opposite.
The real focus of the article is the romantic irony, in particular the views of Friedrich Schlegel, who was one of the chief theoreticians of German romanticism. The reading of Borges' short stories is attempted, the point of departure being two Shlegel's fragments that offer contrasting and complementary possibilities of interpretation.
The first explains romantic irony in the context of the notion of chaos and possibility, the second draws on the concept of parabasis, known from the theory of Ancient Greek drama. The first interpretation tries to show Borges' poetics as a poetics of possibility; the short story Library of Babel serves as an example.
The second interpretation shows how the motives of waking up, creation and game can all be connected through the concept of parabasis and shows a group of Borges' text, including some poems, that can be considered ironic in this special sense.