Open AccessThe Specular Fauna of Jorge Luis Borges
Author(s) -
Fernando Valerio-Holguín
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
theory in action
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1937-0237
pISSN - 1937-0229
DOI - 10.3798/tia.1937-0237.2051
Subject(s) - legend , literature , mythology , poetry , philosophy , context (archaeology) , sinology , art , poetics , history , china , archaeology
The purpose of this essay is to analyze “Fauna of Mirrors” by Jorge Luis Borges, in the context of his poetics: mirrors, fantastic animal, and dreams. Borges (re) creates the myth of the Fish of the mirrors and the legend of the tiger of the mirrors, of doubtful existence. Taking advantage of the epistemological distance with China, Borges founds his own sinology, his own myth, and his own legend. For Borges, copying, repetition, real or apocryphal quotes, glosses, translation, interpretation and rewriting are but another form of literary creation. Partially, the writers and texts cited by Borges to assemble his text are apocryphal: it is the case of Father Zallinger and the sinologist Herbert Allen Giles who, although of real existence, are attributed false and incomplete references. In the text, animals of mirrors manifest themselves as products of the Yellow Emperor's dream, as the repressed unconscious, upon which Chinese civilization and culture are founded.