Into the imaginative realm of borges.

• Main Author: Lim Singh, Melissa.
• Other Authors: Terence Richard Dawson
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: DRNTU::Humanities::Literature::English
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/44334
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

In my essay, I turn to some of Jorge Luis Borges’ writings in the translated edition of Borges’ Selected Non-Fictions, in order to gain some insight to the way Borges thinks, so as to have a better grasp in unraveling the complexities found in his fictional short stories. It is in his early writings, in particular those between 1927 and 1929, namely “An Investigation of the Word”, “The Perpetual Race of Achilles and the Tortoise” and “A History of Eternity”, that we see his main principles and ideas coming together, inspired from his vast knowledge of subjects, unique experiences and having a highly inquisitive mind. The concepts derived from these essays, that I will discuss, form the intrinsic elements of his major fictional works. In my essay, I will be using three of Borges’ distinguished fictional short stories, “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius”, “The Library of Babel” and “The Aleph”, from two of his most celebrated compilations from Collected Fictions, The Garden Of Forking Paths (1941) and The Aleph (1949), to show how a similar overarching theme is found and explored extensively in all the three short stories, with each story having a unique approach to the theme, as employed by Borges. The aim of my essay is not to refute or agree with Borges and his ideas, but to show how he presents and exerts his principles in the short stories, especially the focus he places on the importance of the imagination, and to engage with some critique that he and his works have been subjected to.