L'Ange Heurtebise
Cocteau, poetry, 1926.
Cocteau, poetry, 1926.
Poem by Victor Hugo, in Les Châtiments (1853).
Poem by Victor Hugo, in Les Châtiments (1853).
French film director, 1888-1979
Elías Metchnikoff work (1901).
Argentine periodical, presumably standing for Ladrón Conocido, a magazine where Carriego published under the pseudonym El Barretero
Fantastic novel by María Luisa Bombal (1938).
Elías Metchnikoff work (1906).
French poet and fabulist, 1621-1695
French writer and critic, 1739-1803
Poem by Hilario Ascasubi.
Fishburn and Hughes: "An upper-class parish bordering Palermo in northern Buenos Aires." (109)
French military officer, 1470-1525
Excerpt from Parmi les Mystiques et les Magiciens du Tibet (1929) by Alexandra David-Néel.
Fishburn and Hughes: "An old colonial street, now called Bartolomé Mitre, in central Buenos Aires." (109)
Parodi: obra de Ventura Robustiano Lynch (1850-1888), músico, pintor, folclorista, escritor y periodista argentino, perteneciente a la llamada ‘generación del 80’. A pesar del título, el libro mencionado es un estudio de gran valor documental sobre vocabularios bonaerenses, poesías, cuentos, danzas, vestimenta y costumbres del gaucho y del indio. Fue publicado en 1883 y reeditado en 1925 con el título de Cancionero bonaerense. César Paladión publica La provincia de Buenos Aires hasta la definición de la cuestión Capital de la República durante el período 1911-1919.
Excerpt from Ensayo de la historia civil del Paraguay, Buenos Aires y Tucumán (1816-1817).
Parodi: una marca de cigarrillos de la fábrica de ese nombre producidos entre 1854 y 1911; también los ‘Sublimes’ que fuma Parodi eran fabricados por esa empresa.
Fantastic novel by María Luisa Bombal (1933).
Elías Metchnikoff work (1903).
Allá abajo, Huysmans novel, 1891
queen in the Arabian Nights
town in northern Spain near Huesca
Parodi: el “conde de Labata”: supuesto primer recopilador de la dispersa obra de Zúñiga. El Conde es supuesto señor de un caserío y tierras de cultivo de cereales en Labata, en la sierra de Guarra, provincia de Huesca, en Aragón.
Play by Ramón Gómez de la Serna, 1910.
Borges essay, 1935
scene designer
peninsula in eastern Canada
Argentine politician
Parodi: “Durante la intervención de Labruna”: la frase encierra una ambigüedad que da ocasión a una broma. En primer lugar, el sustantivo ‘intervención’ suele interpretarse en sentido propio como la acción de un gobierno federal que asume provisionalmente las funciones de las autoridades provinciales. Las circunstancias políticas de la época alientan la conjetura de que el mencionado Labruna podría haber sido uno de los varios ‘interventores’ que los gobiernos nacionales de la ‘década infame’ (1930−1943) (cf. “Formas” §8) designaron para fiscalizar diversas provincias. Según esta lectura, sería en su condición de supuesto ‘interventor’ de la provincia de Santa Fe, que Labruna habría nombrado a Bustos para desempeñar esos cargos públicos. Pero hay una segunda interpretación, posibilitada por el uso del término ‘intervención’ no en el contexto político o jurídico habitual sino en la jerga del fútbol, que se ajusta perfectamente al texto (cf. Pérsico 111-112, quien añade que Borges admitió que esa frase “fue una ocurrencia de Adolfito”). Para hablar de la actuación o la participación de algún jugador en algún momento del partido, los periodistas y locutores deportivos echaban mano de términos supuestamente más novedosos y cultos, como el sustantivo ‘intervención’ y el verbo ‘intervenir’. “La intervención de Labruna” seguramente era una frase reiterada en las transmisiones de fútbol de los años cuarenta, ya que Ángel Amadeo Labruna (1918−1983) era entonces el más famoso de los jugadores de River Plate, el club de fútbol que resultó campeón en 1941 y 1942. En este pasaje, Borges y Bioy ironizan sobre este empleo del verbo ‘intervenir’, una de las tantas palabras y expresiones pomposas del lenguaje del periodismo deportivo, una moda también compartida por políticos de recurrir a términos no usuales, de inventar palabras presuntuosas y rebuscadas o de atribuirles nuevos significados, con la intención de aparentar originalidad, refinamiento y cultura. (Sobre el término ‘intervención’ empleado con este significado, cf. también Esse §1). En su Diccionario del argentino exquisito, Bioy elabora un catálogo de estas expresiones e ironiza sobre ellas y quienes las emplean, calificándolas peyorativamente de ‘exquisitas’. La mayoría de las palabras que reúne en el diccionario son propias del vocabulario castellano, pero han sido falseadas por el uso y abuso que de ellas hace el ‘exquisito’. En 1971, en el prólogo al Diccionario, ‘Javier Miranda’ −seudónimo que emplea Bioy en la ocasión− acusaba como culpables de las deformaciones del idioma a “un tropel de presidentes, de ministros, de militares, de sindicalistas, de profesores, de anunciadores, de arquitectos, de médicos, de periodistas, de dentistas, de sociólogos y de psicólogos.” Bioy incorpora al acervo del lenguaje exquisito los eufemismos, una “variante de esa cursilería, de ese fruncimiento”, que lleva a “llamar a los viejos, miembros de la tercera edad […], empleada doméstica a la mucama, y encargado al portero”. Borges y Bioy ridiculizan a sus personajes haciendo que se refieran a un abogado llamándolo “confesor jurídico” (“Penumbra”); a un impresor, “señor regente de los talleres gráficos” (“Enemigo”) o al servicio de recolección de basura, que pomposamente recibe el título de “Oficina Recaudadora del Producido de la Enajenación de los Subproductos Seleccionados de los Residuos Domiciliarios” (Modelo V). En la obra de Bustos y de Suárez Lynch, Borges y Bioy ponen en boca de varios personajes términos ’exquisitos’ como parte de la caracterización y parodia de su lenguaje. Aunque no en todas las ocurrencias, he reservado una entrada para estos términos cada vez que su empleo por Borges y Bioy parezca intencional y contribuya al perfil del personaje.
Juan de Mena poem, 1444
Lenormand, 1925
French writer with books on Japan, China and Italy, here cited for his book La Chine capitaliste, 1938
German philologist, 1793-1851, author of important treatises on Old High German metrics and poetics, editor of the first critical edition of the Nibelungenlied in 1826 and of an important edition of Lessing's works, and translator of Shakespeare's sonnets and Macbeth
Parodi: la empresa de tranvías Lacroze, inaugurada en 1868 fue la primera línea de tranvías de Buenos Aires. Aunque el nombre de la empresa era la Tramway Central, se la conoció siempre como ‘el Lacroze’, por el apellido de sus creadores, los hermanos Julio y Federico Lacroze. Los vehículos, al principio tirados por caballos, hacían un recorrido entre la Plaza de Mayo y la Estación Once de Septiembre. En los primeros años del siglo XX, el Lacroze fue electrificado. En Borges 1586, recuerda Bioy: “Cuando era chico […] establecía preferencias −simpatías y diferencias− en todo grupo de cosas. Entre los tranvías de Buenos Aires, por ejemplo, prefería los Lacroze, largos y verdes, a los del Anglo-Argentino, rojos y amarillos.” Borges menciona estos tranvías en algunos poemas, en Evaristo Carriego y en otras páginas de su obra personal. Mencionado también en “Signo” §2.
Lucius Caelius Firmianus Lactantius, Christian author and apologist, born in Africa, c.260-340, author of De Opificio Dei, Divinae Institutiones, Phoenix and other works
ranch foreman, character in Reyles
Fishburn and Hughes: "'The right hand': perhaps a deliberate play on words to denote a foreman; yet Borges claims that such a foreman actually lived, as recounted to him by Reyles." (110)
Swiss scholar of Buddhism, 1889-1963
poem by Ricardo Güiraldes, 1913
D. H. Lawrence novel, 1928
David Garnett novel, 1922
character in Shakespeare's Macbeth
Collection of short stories by W. W. Jacobs published in 1902.
Wilde comedy, 1892
king of Ithaca, father of Ulysses
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.
French general and political leader, 1757-1834
character in Borges story
Argentine journalist, 1893-1978, worked at La Nación
street in Palermo neighborhood, Buenos Aires
Borges's cousin, see Melián Lafinur, Alvaro
Fishburn and Hughes: "A young cousin of Borges's father, considered by the family a ladies' man and a rogue. Borges records his indebtedness to Lafinur for initiating him into the mysteries of the brothels of Palermo." (110)
Argentine poet, 1797-1824
Fishburn and Hughes: "Borges's great-uncle, a poet and teacher whose appointment in 1919 to the Chair of Philosophy at the newly formed Colegio de la Unión del Sud marked the movement from scholasticism to the doctrines of liberal thinkers such as Condillac and Locke and laid the foundations of secular teaching in Argentina. Lafinur was criticised for upholding materialistic ideologies and was eventually forced into exile. Borges wrote a poem in his honour and dedicated to him his essay 'A New Refutation of Time', where, in the prologue, he praises his poetry and liberalism and comments ruefully: 'Like all men, he was given bad times in which to live'). The Aleph: the allusion to a Juan Crisóstomo Lafinur library is based on fact." (110)
Fishburn and Hughes: "A Uruguayan uncle of Borges." (110)
Franco-Uruguayan poet, 1860-1887, author of L'Imitations de Notre-Dame la Lune, Les Complaintes and other works
Susana Bombal stories, 1972
Swedish writer, 1858-1940
lake near Bariloche
lake near Bariloche
lake near Bariloche
lake near Bariloche
lake near Bariloche
lake near Bariloche
large lake by Bariloche
lake near Bariloche
lake near Bariloche
A militar officer that battle during the Argetine Civil Wars for the Federal Army (1806-1860).
family in Bustos Domecq story, see Grandvilliers-Lagrange
Parodi: Grandvilliers-Lagrange, un grupo familiar que se aloja en el Hotel des Eaux. Según Ubalde, “unos señorones de fuste”, “últimos retoños del feudalismo”; según Poyarré (cf. infra §3), una de las familias más antiguas de Francia. Siendo su apellido originario Lagrange (‘el granero’ y, por extensión, finca, granja), a fines del siglo xvii, con el comienzo de la revolución industrial y el consiguiente desplazamiento a las grandes ciudades, agregaron el segundo apellido, ‘Grandvilliers’, de mayor prestigio social para la época.
lake in province of Buenos Aires
Fishburn and Hughes: "A lake and district in the southern province of Buenos Aires. See Mesa." (110)
lake in province of Buenos Aires
A disappeared lagoon in the city of Buenos Aires. Nowadays, this lagoon is Plaza Güemes in Palermo.
lake in province of Buenos Aires
lakes in Jujuy
city in Pakistan
Greek courtesan of Sicily, carried to Corinth after the Athenian expedition to Sicily
Fishburn and Hughes: "A celebrated Greek courtesan. (TL 244) : in her youth Laïs was paid with gold coins but in old age she had to content herself with less. Her plight is described by Athenaeus (12.81): 'Like the eagles she once snapped lambs in flight; now, old, she perches in hunger upon the temple, waiting to snatch meat from the altars. When she was young she was wild and proud of the golden coins she received. Now old and shapeless.. .she is so tame she will take money out of your hands.' The name became a general term for courtesans." (110)
bookseller in Buenos Aires
Parodi: Félix Lajouane fue un librero y editor nacido en Francia, que llegó a la Argentina en 1868 y abrió su “Librería Nacional” en la calle Perú. Fue además uno de los más importantes editores argentinos de las últimas décadas del siglo XX. El local de la librería ofreció un espacio a reuniones de intelectuales y políticos.
Burton travel book, 1860
Bengali Indian journalist, 1824-1892. Author of Folk Tales of Bengal (1883) among other works.
a canonical work of the northern Buddhists, a life of the Buddha, written in Sanskrit
French critic and historian of French literature
French poet, novelist and statesman, 1790-1869
English essayist, 1775-1834, author with his sister Mary of Tales from Shakespeare
English writer, 1764-1847, author with her brother Charles of Tales from Shakespeare
character in Hudson's Purple Land
English journalist and historian, 1894-1981, author of Art in England
character in Bustos Domecq stories
Parodi: 1) “aquel Lambkin, fantoche de fantasía, que dio su augusto nombre a una sátira de Belloc”: sobre Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc (1870-1953) escritor inglés nacido en Francia, dice Borges que tiene “la fama de ser el mejor prosista y el más diestro versificador del idioma inglés” (“Stories”, TC1 407). En Cautivos 371-372, “Hilaire Belloc”: “Se habla demasiado sobre él. Se dice que es un francés, un inglés, un universitario de Oxford, un historiador, un soldado, un economista, un poeta, un antisemita, un filosemita, un hombre de campo, un farsante, un aventajado alumno de Chesterton, un maestro de Chesterton”. Escribió más de cien libros entre ensayos de política, economía, historia, biografías, poemas infantiles, poesías, novelas y reflexiones. Asimismo, escribió biografías, entre otras, las de Robespierre, Richelieu, Jaime Segundo, Juana de Arco, Cromwell, Napoleón, María Antonieta, Guillermo el Conquistador. En opinión de Borges, “Belloc ensayista es insignificante o imperceptible; Belloc novelista pasa de lo mediocre a lo intolerable; Belloc juez literario prefiere aseverar a persuadir; Belloc historiador me parece admirabilísimo” (“Stories” TC1 407). En 1900 publicó su octavo libro: Lambkin’s Remains, que presenta como edición de las obras no publicadas de “J. A. Lambkin, M.A. sometime Fellow of Burford College”. Belloc dota a Josiah Lambkin de una genealogía, le inventa una biografía que extiende entre 1843 y 1899, reproduce textualmente y comenta sus poemas, sus ensayos, su correspondencia, sus discursos y sermones, sus artículos periodísticos, analiza minuciosamente los rasgos retóricos de su prosa, su caligrafía, sus gestos, el tono de su voz, sus lecturas y hasta incluye en el capítulo final una entrevista que supuestamente tuvo lugar en casa de Lambkin poco antes de su muerte.
2) el nombre de este supuesto crítico descriptivista está creado por la combinación de los nombres de dos literatos reales, Hilaire Belloc y Josiah Abraham Lambkin (cf. Crónicas “Prólogo” §6), y uno apócrifo, José Formento, personaje de “Toros”, cf. §1. Lambkin Formento sería autor de breves ’notículas’ ceñidas a las características físicas de la obra. Durante cinco años (1924-1929) colaboró en los Anales de Buenos Aires (cf. infra §3). Desde 1929 hasta su muerte (1936) se dedicó a escribir un estudio crítico sobre la Divina Comedia (cf. infra §3). Bustos Domecq califica la Divina Comedia de Lambkin de “primer monumento descriptivista”, en el que la descripción del poema coincidía palabra por palabra con la obra de Dante.
thirty-six upright men of Jewish legend
Argentine painter, director of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in the 1960s
Michael Innes mystery, 1938
Keats poem, 1819
Greco-Roman monsters, half-woman, half-serpent
Italian novelist, 1896-1957
German preacher, early 13th century, author of a Sanct Francisken Leben and the poetic allegory Die Tochter Syon
one of several authors known as Scriptores historiae Augustae, whose work includes an account of the life of Heliogabalus
French rhetorician, 1640-1715, author of La Rhetorique; ou, l'Art de parler, 1701, and numerous other works on rhetoric
14th century commentator on Dante, author of Commento alla Divina Commedia
county town of Lancashire, England
knight in Arthurian legend, sometimes Lanzarote
Yeats play, 1894
St. Brendon's vision
science fiction novel by Joseph O'Neill about a futuristic Ireland, 1935
Sackville-West poem, 1927
Kafka's story of a country doctor, 1918
engineer, character in Borges-Bioy filmscript
Strachey, 1912
the Book of Settlements, a history of Iceland sometimes attributed to Ari Thorgilsson
English poet and essayist, 1775-1864
Elmer Rice play, early version of Street Scene
English painter known for his paintings of animals, 1802-1873
British Orientalist, 1801-76, author of Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians and translator of Selections from the Kur-an and the Arabian Nights
Fishburn and Hughes: "An orientalist, the compiler of a Thesaurus of the Arabic Language and a translator of the Thousand and One Nights (1839) which followed Galland's eighteenth-century French translation. Lane's English version, heavily expurgated, was later superseded by Richard Burton's. Borges describes Lane's work as erudite and accurate but laments its efforts to 'disinfect' the original by glossing over the coarser details and omitting what he considered immoral and reprehensible. Thus Lane created what might be termed an 'encyclopaedia of evasions' (Etern. 99).
Brodie’s Report: the reference to the 'annotations, interrogation marks and...emendations' in Brodie's manuscript humorously recalls the large number of explanatory notes added by Lane to his introduction and to each of the thirty chapters." (110-11)
Edward Lane's clergyman father
British scholar and man of letters, 1844-1912, author of Myth, Ritual and Religion, a History of Scotland, Essays in Little, Letters to Dead Authors, translations of Homer and Theocritus, numerous collections of fairy tales, etc.
Friedrich Christian Anton Lang, Austrian filmmaker active later in Hollywood, 1890-1976
poem from Carlos Muñoz de la Púa’s book La crencha engrasada
US film actor, 1884-1944, known for his portrayals of clowns
British writer and journalist, 1897-1971, a war correspondent during the Spanish Civil War
Argentine writer, author of Gigante americano: Walt Whitman y su epoca, 1944, and translator of The Abasement of the Northmores
Argentine poet and novelist, 1906-1972, author of La calle de la tarde, 45 dias y 30 marineros, Cuadernos de infancia and other works
putative author of Piers Plowman, c.1332-c.1400
town in eastern France
Devaux, 1930
Collaborator who worked with Wally Simpson on her autobiography
US poet and musician, 1842-1881, author of Tiger Lilies
French literary historian, 1857-1934, author of an Histoire de la littérature française, 1894
industrial suburb of Buenos Aires
Fishburn and Hughes: "A town and middle-class district in Greater Buenos Aires, south west of the capital." (111)
Argentine poet, short-story writer and essayist, 1903-1976
Roberto Arlt novel, 1931, sequel to Los siete locos
Chinese philosopher, reputed founder of Taoism and putative author of the Tao Te King, b. c.604 B.C.
Parodi: el reputado asceta Lao-Tse fue creador del concepto de ocio en la tradición china, el Wu-wei, entendido como ‘no actuar’ (cf. “Tai An” i §5).
Lessing treatise on esthetics, 1766
Lapiths, in Greek myth the enemies of the centaurs
French astronomer and mathematician, 1749-1827, author of La Mechanique celeste, Exposition du systeme du monde and other works
Parodi: ‘Laponia’ es el nombre de una importante fábrica de chocolates y helados.
German historian, 1794-1865, author of Geschichte von England and many works on the history of Germany and the Netherlands
street in Buenos Aires
Fishburn and Hughes: "A street in the fashionable district of Palermo, in the Barrio Norte." (111)
Parodi: “la confluencia de Laprida y Mansilla”: dirección del supuesto único tenebrarium de la ciudad de Buenos Aires. En esa dirección, en Laprida 1214, estaba la casa de Xul Solar (Oscar Agustín Alejandro Schulz Solari, 1887-1963), amigo de Borges, que lo menciona en varias de sus páginas. En Borges 170, resume Borges las múltiples ocupaciones e intereses de Xul: “resplandecía –abrumaba−con sus doce idiomas y los dos que él había inventado (el neocriol y la panlingua), con su juego de ajedrez, que era también una máquina de pensar y de producir horóscopos, con su piano circular, con el Pan Club, con sus cuadros y su astrología.” Xul fue además músico e inventor de una nueva grafía musical; interesado por el ocultismo, la teosofía, la antroposofía y el misticismo; fue escritor, traductor, colaborador en la revista Martín Fierro, donde comienza su larga amistad con Borges, y en Revista Multicolor de los Sábados, en El Hogar, en Destiempo. Xul ilustró, entre otros, El tamaño de mi esperanza y Un modelo para la muerte. Desde 1993, la vivienda de Xul se convirtió en un museo donde se exhiben en forma permanente algunas de sus obras y donde funciona un centro cultural con espectáculos y exposiciones; la Fundación Pan Klub Museo Xul Solar conserva además la biblioteca personal del artista.
sergeant in Argentine army in 1856, mentioned in Borges story
Fishburn and Hughes: "An ancestor of Borges. He was a sergeant-major who gained notoriety for his leadership during the wars between the Provinces and Buenos Aires (see Federalism). Placed at the head of 80 men, he defeated the regular army unit of 200 in a battle at the Cardoso Marshes on 25 January 1856. Laprida's defeat of the Indians took place not at Cardoso, as stated, but during a raid in 1879." (111)
Argentine politician, 1780-1829, president of the Congress of Tucuman of 1816
Flemish name for the Wandering Jew
Fishburn and Hughes: "The name of the Wandering Jew in the Flemish version of the legend which appeared in Brussels c.1774. See Joseph Cartaphilus." (111)
co-editor of El tema del tango en la literatura argentina, 1969
French writer, 1881-1937, author of A. O. Barnabooth, Fermina Marquez, Ce vice impuni, la lecture and other works
Argentine painter and writer, 1897-1967, also known for his scene designs
in Roman religion, guardian spirits of home
former name of two streets in Buenos Aires
Norse name for some part of North American coast
French grammarian and lexicographer, 1817-1875
Argentine historian, 1913-2001
character in Borges-Bioy filmscript
character in Borges-Bioy filmscript
character in Borges-Bioy filmscript
Parodi: 1) conocido como ‘Don Matecito’, vive en Burzaco; es el narrador de la historia de Wenceslao Zalduendo.
2) “don Matecito”: apodo de Larramendi, probablemente por la cantidad de mate que toma o porque anda siempre con el mate a cuestas.
poet mentioned in Bustos Domecq
Parodi: supuesto suplente, posiblemente de la Real Academia Española, a quien el Molinero dedicara unos versos de felicitación.
character in Bustos Domecq story
Parodi: protagonista del cuento; vive en la finca Las Magnolias, en las afueras de Rosario (cf. “H.B.D.” §3), dedicado a tomar mate y al hobby de la carpintería.
Spanish poet and essayist, 1895-1980, associated with the avant garde, editor with César Vallejo of Favorables París Poema
Parodi: “el vasco de la carretilla”: se trata de Guillermo Larregui (1885-1964), un inmigrante vasco llegado al país en 1900, que recorrió a pie unos 14.000 km empujando una carretilla cargada con más de cien kilos de equipo, hazaña que lo convirtió en noticia central de los periódicos en los años treinta y cuarenta. Como consecuencia de una apuesta, inició su recorrido en la Patagonia en 1935 y catorce meses después llegó a Buenos Aires. En otra etapa, caminó de Córdoba a Mendoza, cruzó los Andes y desde Santiago de Chile emprendió el camino a Bolivia; en el último trayecto, en 1949, llegó a la provincia de Misiones y allí decidió instalarse definitivamente en el Parque Nacional del Iguazú, donde vivió hasta su muerte. Además de múltiples artículos periodísticos, sobre la vida de Larregui se publicaron El Vasco de la Carretilla. Una historia patagónica real, de Patricia Halvorsen (1998), El Vasco de la Carretilla, de Txema Urrutia (2001) y en 2006 se estrenó el documental ¡Gora Vasco! (Milonga de temple y carretilla), de José Arizmendi.
Argentine novelist, 1875-1961, author of La gloria de don Ramiro, Zogoibi and other works; Borges sometimes mockingly calls him "el doctor Rodríguez Larreta"
author of German encyclopedia
character in Chaplin's The Gold Rush
Fishburn and Hughes: "A street now named Bernardo de Yrigoyen. Its continuation, Carlos Pellegrini, is a fashionable shopping centre flanking Avenida Nueve de Julio in the centre of Buenos Aires." (112)
Spanish Dominican monk and missionary in the New World, 1474-1566, author of Historia general de las Indias and Brevissima relacion de la destruycion de las Indias
avenue in Buenos Aires
Parodi: 1) una de las avenidas que rodea el predio donde estaba ubicada la Penitenciaría Nacional.
2) una de las arterias que rodeaba el predio de la Penitenciaría.
Argentine general and politician, 1780-1866
Set of manuals for teaching introductory Roman law. Written by Gayo in the 2nd century.
Work by María Luisa Bombal.
pseud. of Cansinos Assens
Verlaine sonnet in Poemes Saturniens, 1867
Argentine writer who collaborated in Caras y Caretas
German writer, 1848-1910, author of Geschichte der Atomistik vom Mittelalter bis Newton and other works
Stapledon science fiction novel, 1930
film with Emil Janninigs, 1928
De Quincey essay, 1827
book by Bulwer-Lytton, 1834
Stapledon science fiction novel, 1932
Cooper novel, 1826
Grey, 1908
pseudonym of Máximo Sáenz, Argentine journalist and humorist, 1886-1960
Argentine author (1883-1974) who wrote about the city of Buenos Aires.
Marquand novel, 1937
Carter Dickson, novel, 1946.
Italian man of letters, d. 1294?, author of the first vernacular encyclopedia
mountain in Turkey, now called Besparmak Dagi
Carlyle, 1850
Quevedo verse
English actor, 1899-1962
Argentine grain merchant, 1889-?, here a correspondent of Borges about Wenceslao Suárez
the comedy team of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, known in Spanish as El Gordo y el Flaco
British film actor, 1890-1965, worked in team with Oliver Hardy
quinta
part-owner of a meat packing plant
character in Tres domingos by Susana Bombal
Swinburne poem in Poems and Ballads, 1866
city in Switzerland
town in Switzerland
Pseudonym of Isidore Ducasse, Uruguayan-born French writer, 1846-1870, author of Les Chants de Maldoror
French politician and prime minister, 1883-1945
street in Buenos Aires
The wife of the poet Estanislao del Campo, and the nice of the General Juan Lavalle.
Argentine general, leader of Unitarian forces against Rosas, 1797-1841
Fishburn and Hughes: "An Argentine hero, born into an aristocratic porteño family, who fought with San Martín in the war of Independence, and with Alvear in the war against Brazil. In 1828 Lavalle was elected by the Unitarians as their military leader against the Federalist movement. A Biography of Tadeo Isidoro Cruz (1829-1874): the gaucho militia (Montoneros) mentioned here would have been followers of Rosas who, when he was defeated by Lavalle in 1828, escaped in disguise with some of his troops to join Estanislao López, the caudillo of the Santa Fe province. Lavalle was eventually defeated by the combined forces of Rosas and López on 26 April 1829. After ten years of exile in Montevideo he reluctantly returned to lead the Unitarian forces in another attempt to oust Rosas; he fought against Rosas and Oribe when a revolt broke out in the province of Buenos Aires and the port was blockaded by the French. On 2 September 1839 Lavalle allied his forces to those of the French, and his army of 550 men, embarked in French boats, landed near Gualeguay and was involved in a series of military encounters. The Elderly Lady: the 'sabrefest' is probably the battle of Cagancha on 29 December 1839, in which Lavalle's party was victorious. The revolt was soon crushed and the blockade lifted. Lavalle did not attempt to enter the city. In 1840 he was defeated by Oribe at Quebracho Herrado and died soon after in Jujuy." (112)
square in Buenos Aires, by Teatro Colon
Argentine dramatist and poet, 1754-1809, author of Oda a majestuoso río Paraná
Swiss theologian and mystic, student of human physiognomy, 1741-1801
Phillpotts, 1923
character in Shaw play Androcles and the Lion
character in Dante
Wilkie Collins, 1875.
Graham Greene travel book on Mexico, 1939
French version of Frieda Lawrence's Not I but the Wind
David Lean film on T. E. Lawrence, 1962, starring Peter O'Toole and Alec Guinness
English novelist, 1885-1930, author of Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow, The Plumed Serpent, The White Peacock, Lady Chatterley's Lover and other works
German noblewoman, 1879-1956, married D. H. Lawrence in 1914
British adventurer, soldier, writer and scholar, also known as Lawrence of Arabia and T. E. Shaw, 1888-1935, author of Seven Pillars of Wisdom and a translation of the Odyssey
Fishburn and Hughes: "An English scholar and military leader who played an important political role in the Arab world during World War I while serving in the British Army. Lawrence was sent by the British government to instigate and support an Arab rebellion against the Turks, then allies of Germany, in the belief that it would help conclude the war. The legendary events of this period of his life are told in his semi-autobiographical novel The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926). The book, packed with colourful characters and episodes in which fact and fiction mingle, describes the war against the Turks up to the conquest of Damascus in 1918, by which time the Germans were defeated. The accent of the first-person narrative suggests the moral degradation of the narrator. After the war Lawrence continued to campaign for the Arab cause. His eventful life ended tragically in a motorcycle accident. See There seemed a certainty in degradation." (112)
Laxaldalur, name of three different valleys in Iceland
a late Icelandic family saga concerned with the tragic conflicts involving Kjartan and Gudrun
Stevenson essays
Anglo-Saxon poet, 13th century, author of Brut
Macaulay poems on history of ancient Rome, 1842
in Bible, man of Bethany resurrected by Jesus
Ricardo Gutiérrez's Poem. It was published in 1869.
Argentine writer, born in Uruguay without noble title, 1887-1966, author of De la elegancia mientras se duerme
French psychologist, 1841-1931, here cited for his interest in theories of an eternal return in L'homme et les sociétés, 1881
Work by Alexandra David-Néel.
Work by Jean Cocteau (1918).
pseud. of Charles Edouard Jeanneret, Swiss-French architect, 1887-1965
Parodi: el suizo-francés Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, conocido como ‘Le Corbusier’ (1887-1965), uno de los iniciadores del racionalismo y el funcionalismo en arquitectura, conceptos impulsados en los años treinta por el llamado ‘Estilo Internacional’. Le Corbusier visitó Buenos Aires en 1929, invitado por la Asociación Amigos del Arte (cf. “Ojo” §2) a dar un ciclo de conferencias. En Argentina sólo hay una vivienda diseñada por Le Corbusier: en 1948 proyectó la ‘Casa Curutchet’, en la ciudad de La Plata, que fue declarada monumento histórico en 2016.
verse from Carriego's El guapo
French literary scholar, 1898-1958, editor of Pléiade edition of Verlaine
character in Suarez Lynch novella
Parodi: Tonio Le Fanu es personaje sólo de Modelo. Presidente de la a.a.a.; emigró a Buenos Aires desde Alemania. Allí estaba casado con Ema Fingermann (cf. supra ii §45), hermana de Kuno, el tesorero de la a.a.a. En la presentación de los personajes de su novela (cf. “Dramatis personae”), Suárez Lynch dice de Le Fanu “según Oscar Wilde, ‘un Mefistófeles en miniatura, mofándose de la mayoría’.” La frase pertenece a una nota crítica de Wilde publicada en la Pall Mall Gazette del 21 de febrero de 1885 (“Mr. Whistler’s Ten O’clock”,) en la que Wilde reseña una conferencia (titulada “Ten O’clock”) que el pintor James Abbott Whistler (1834-1903) había pronunciado en Prince’s Hall, la noche anterior. Refiriéndose a Whistler, Wilde comenta: “The scene was in every way delightful; he stood there, a miniature Mephistopheles, mocking the majority!” El apellido del doctor Le Fanu recuerda al del escritor irlandés Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873), autor de novelas y cuentos góticos. En el texto, Casi todas las expresiones y motes referidos a Le Fanu aluden a su muerte: el gusanófilo; RIP Le Fanu; el reverteris; el que hace nono en la Recoleta; el tumbófilo; el “morituri te salutant”.
German writer, 1876-1971
Work by Jean Cocteau (1923).
Work by Alexandra David-Néel.
Cocteau.
Argentine kinetic artist, b. 1928
Parodi: “el cielo raso, obra de Le Parc”: en el hall central del edificio el cielo raso está hecho de vitrales y, en los salones, está recubierto con una capa de dorado a la hoja de 14 quilates, técnicas no asimilables al arte del argentino Julio Le Parc (1928), alineado en el vanguardismo del ‘op-art’ y del ‘arte cinético’.
French comedy by Jean Richepin (1849-1926)
Canadian economist, writer and humorist, 1869-1944
English mystic, 1623-1704, leader of the Philadelphians, author of a diary entitled A Fountain of Gardens
English theosophist, 1847-1934, author of The Astral Plane
US author and illustrator of children's books, 1905-1976, author of The Story of Ferdinand
José Rodrigues Miguéis novel, 1958
Ralph Bates novel, 1934
Leander, in Greek myth, lover of Hero, priestess of Aphrodite in Sestos, who swam the Hellespont nightly to visit her
street in Buenos Aires, formerly the Paseo de Julio
Parodi: “Leandro Alem y Tucumán”: una esquina de ‘El Bajo’, nombre que designa a la zona de la ciudad de Buenos Aires que se extiende a lo largo de la costa del Río de la Plata. Cercano al puerto, El Bajo fue tradicionalmente un lugar de bares y prostíbulos, muy concurrido por marineros. En esa esquina funciona el Dragón que se aturde, un salón administrado por Madame Hsin.
legendary king of Britain, subject of Shakespeare play
English humorist and artist, 1812-88, author of The Book of Nonsense
main character in Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, also known as Natty Bumppo, Pathfinder and Deerslayer
Whitman book of poems, first published in 1855, final revisions of "deathbed" edition in 1891- 1892
English critic and teacher, 1895-1978, author of The Great Tradition, New Bearings in English Poetry and other works
Enterrado vivo, Gottfried Keller poems
French novelist, 1864-1941, creator of Arsène Lupin
Andalusian city mentioned in the Arabian Nights
Bustos film
French biophysicist, 1883-1947
Elías Metchnikoff work (1892).
French Parnassian poet, 1818-94, author of Poèmes antiques, Poèmes barbares and other works
detective in Gaboriau novel Monsieur Lecoq, 1869
Parodi: personaje creado por el escritor francés Émile Gaboriau (1832−1873), uno de los padres del género policial. Lecoq, un comisario investigador puramente especulativo, inspiró a Conan Doyle para la creación de Sherlock Holmes.
Coleridge talk, 1818
Gertrude Stein, 1935
in Greek mythology, queen of Sparta seduced by Zeus, who visited her in the form of a swan
Yeats poem in The Tower, 1928
Argentine poet, 1900-1963
US writer, 1905-71, co-author with his cousin Frederick Dannay of the detective novels of Ellery Queen, and co-editor of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
Confederate general during the U.S. Civil War, 1807-1870
British writer (1856-1935). Her real name was Violet Paget.
French writer and actor, 1898-1981, author of Les Musiciens du ciel
Powys, 1923
Barcos en el cielo, Gunnar Gunnarson novel published originally in Danish, in 1923, translated into English in 1938 under the title Ships of the Sky
Wilkie Collins, 1889.
Irving story in The Sketch-Book, 1820
Fischart attack on the Jesuits, 1580, also known as Jesuiterhutlein
the Golden Legend, medieval manual of ecclesiastical lore by Jacobus de Voragine, 1230- 1298
Irving tales, 1832
French literary historian and critic, 1861-1937, co-author with Cazamian of a History of English Literature
character in Poe's The Gold Bug
famous Uruguayan jockey, nicknamed el Mono, b. 1903 d. 1985
Parodi: 1) Ireneo Leguisamo (1903-1985) fue un famoso jockey uruguayo −apodado “El Pulpo”, “El Mono”, “El Maestro”− que compitió en hipódromos argentinos y uruguayos por más de medio siglo. En 1925, el músico Modesto Papaveo escribió en su honor el tango “Leguisamo solo” que fue grabado por Carlos Gardel (cf. “Enfoque” §2), amigo de Leguisamo.
2) el jockey Ireneo Leguisamo (mencionado también en Modelo i §33), amigo de Carlos Gardel, nacido en la República Oriental del Uruguay (de ahí la frase de Bustos: “oriental mucho me temo”) pero del que se afirmaba también que era argentino.
Argentine writer, 1858-1935, author of Montaraz, Calandria and other works
lake mentioned in Bustos Domecq story, perhaps Lake Leman in Switzerland
Parodi: “el lago Lehmann [sic]”: el contexto autoriza a afirmar que se trata del lago Lemán (en francés Léman), también llamado ‘Lago de Ginebra’ (en alemán, Genfersee), el mayor lago de Europa Occidental. Se encuentra situado al norte de los Alpes, entre Francia y Suiza.
English poet and publisher, 1907-1987, associated with Stephen Spender and the Woolfs, here mistakenly spelled Lebmann
Argentine ethnologist and linguist, 1872-1938, author of a book on Santos Vega
German scholar, 1910-?, author of Die Erwecknung der Walküre, 1935
German scholar of Anglo-Saxon poetry and Shakespeare, 1910-1992, author of Altenglisches Elementarbuch and other works
Grimm, 1915
German philosopher, mathematician, historian and scientist, 1646-1716, author of Essais de Theodicée sur la Bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l'homme et l'origine du mal
Fishburn and Hughes: "A German philosopher and mathematician, born and educated at Leipzig, who served as librarian and counsellor at the court of the dukes of Hanover. Leibniz's best-known works are Theodicy (1710) and Monadology (1714).
The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero, CF 143: in the second book he expands the principle that all substance is made up of an infinite number of spiritual beings, or 'centres of force', known as 'monads'. These are entirely self-contained, in so far as the activity of each excludes that of every other; yet each one mirrors the universe and they are all related by a 'preestablished harmony'. Although Leibniz's monads 'have no windows by which anything can come in or go out', this pre-established harmony makes it possible to infer from the state of any one substance a corresponding state of any other. Thus each monad, combining matter and form, is the microcosm of the whole. Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, CF 72 : God, whose nature is discussed at length in Theodicy, is the supreme monad who pre-establishes the harmonious unity of the universe. Totally free of 'passive elements', he has a perfect knowlege of truth and goodness; the universe is the product of this perfect knowledge and, as such, this world must be 'the best possible'. Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote, CF 89: at the stage in which perception is developed into thought Leibniz observes that all knowledge contains some basic 'root notions' which can rationally be referred to by universal symbols intellegible in all languages. These are described as characteristica universalis, though Leibniz never fully develops the doctrine. See 'Ne craignez point, Monsieur, la tortue'." (112-13)
city in the Netherlands
Goethe epistolary novel, 1774
Hauptmann, 1930
publication where H. von Stummer published a poem
mentioned in runic inscription found by Black Sea
Norse discoverer of America, fl. c. 1000
stage name of Vivian Mary Hartley, Indian-born British actress, 1913-1967
city in Germany
Fishburn and Hughes: "A German city and important cultural centre south west of Berlin." (113)
German philosopher, 1890-1951, author of Denkformen, Einfuhrung die Philosophie, Die Gnosis and other works
French writer, author of Un Pas dans l'escalier
Greek island in the Aegean, said by Pliny to have an important labyrinth
Portuguese poet and playwright, 1819-1890
English classical scholar, born in Jersey, c. 1765-1824, author of a classical dictionary, Bibliotheca Classica, and of a Universa Biography of Eminent Persons in all Ages and Countries
in Roman religion, vampire-like ghosts of the dead
pseudonym of Nikolaus Franz Niembsch Edler von Strehlenau, Austrian poet, 1802-1850
Book written by Eleuterio Tiscornia
Montoliu essay, 1926
Villamayor, 1915
pseud. of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, Russian revolutionary, 1870-1924
character in Poe's poem The Raven
French writer, 1882-1951
French musicologist specializing in Persian music
pseudonym of Louis Léon Théodore Gosselin, French playwright and historian, 1885-1935, author of Le drame de Varennes
Giacomo da Lentini, c. 1210-c. 1260, poet of the Sicilian school, credited with inventing the sonnet form
character in Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato
city and region of Spain
Essay by Bloy, 1898.
Lugones poem in Los crepusculos del jardin
store in Bustos Domecq story
Spanish novelist and poet, 1877-1943
Italian painter, architect, musician, scientist, 1452-1519
Leonardo Pisano, known as Fibonacci, Italian mathematician, c. 1170-c. 1250, author of Practica Geometriae
character in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso
Eleanor of Aquitaine, c. 1122-1204, queen of Louis VII of France and later of Henry II of England
Italian writer and philosopher, 1798-1837
Layamon's father
Naupactus in Greece, site of naval battle in 1571 between Spaniards and Turks in which Cervantes lost his left hand
Fishburn and Hughes: "A Greek port, the site of an epoch-making battle between Spain and the Ottoman Empire on 7 October 1571. The Spaniards captured 117 enemy galleys. Cervantes lost an arm at the battle, becoming known as 'el manco de Lepanto'." (113)
Chesterton poem
in proverbial expression "sabe más que Lepe" or "sabe más que Lepe, Lepino y su hijo"
Parodi: “que saben más que Lepe”: el dicho ‘saber más que Lepe’, se emplea con el significado de ‘ser muy perspicaz y advertido’. Alude a Pedro de Lepe, obispo de Calahorra y La Calzada (1641-1700), famoso por su Catecismo católico, una obra en forma de preguntas y sus correspondientes respuestas donde vuelca todo su saber teológico para explicar a religiosos y seglares la doctrina cristiana y sus misterios. El tiempo y el uso fueron agregando variantes a esta locución: saber más que Lepe, Lepijo y su hijo; que Lepe, Lepijo y sus cincuenta hijos, y otras.
Swinburne poem
valley near Salta
swamp where the Hydra lives
French writer of crime fiction, 1868-1927, author of Le Mystère de la chambre jaune, Le Parfum de la dame en noir and other works
Work by Alexandra David-Néel.
French Biologist and Physician (1862-1952)
French writer, 1668-1747, author of Gil Blas de Santillane
work said to have been published in 1641, attributed here to Johannes Valentinus Andrea
German philosopher, dramatist and critic, 1729-1781, author of the Laokoon and numerous other writings on aesthetics
James short story
Walpole story in Head in Green Bronze, 1938
Russell collection of political essays, 1941
French linguist and language philosopher, 1801-?, inventor of an artificial language and author of Cours complet de langue universelle, Etablissement immédiat de la langue universelle and other works
river Lethe in hell
Buenos Aires literary magazine, 1953- 1954
Letras libres is a Spanish-language monthly literary magazine published in Mexico and Spain
Wyler film, 1940
Carlyle, c.1845
Burton account of the War of the Triple Alliance, 1870
Scott, 1830
Barbusse letters to his wife, written during the First World War
George Sand, 1857
Montesquieu satire on France, 1721
Ranquel Indian settlement in the Argentine pampas visited by Mansilla
Parodi: el nombre de una localidad situada en el extremo oeste de la provincia de Buenos Aires.
Leucippus, Greek philosopher, 5th century B.C.
Argentine critic, novelist and journalist, 1882-1952, scholar of the Martin Fierro
German theologian and Hebraist, 1624-1699, author of Philologus Hebraeo-Graecus and other works
Fishburn and Hughes: "A Calvinist theologian, professor of Hebrew at the university of Utrecht and one of the foremost biblical scholars of his time, who wrote several treatises on the bible and Hebrew philology. The 1739 edition of his Philologus Hebraicus, published in Basel, consists of three treatises: the Philologus Hebraeus, the Hebraeo-Graecus and the Mixtus. The 33rd dissertation mentioned by Borges is to be found in the Mixtus, and not in the Hebraeo-Graecus as alleged, and the passage is quoted almost verbatim, the original reading: 'Vel dies est sacer destinatus exercitiis sacris, qui incipit a solis occasu usque ad solis occasum diei sequentis' ('This day, which commences when the sun goes down and continues until sunset the following day, is a holy day dedicated to spiritual pursuits'). The dissertation discusses the basic difference in the division of hours or prayer times between the Jewish day, reckoned from dusk to dusk, and the Christian day reckoned from dawn to dawn. This difference, it argues, would explain a discrepancy in the account of the hour of Jesus's crucifixion as related by Mark (15:25) and John (19:14). Because the Jewish calendar is calculated on a lunar basis, its months do not run parallel to the Christian (solar) months. Thus the murders in 'Death and the Compass' should not be understood as having taken place on the fourth day of either a Christian or a Jewish month, but according to a private code existing between criminal and detective in which the beginning of the day was reckoned at dusk according to Jewish custom and the date of the month according to Christian." (113)
the Levant or Orient
Argentine historian, 1885-1959, author of Lecciones de historia argentina, La Revolución de Mayo and Mariano Moreno
Parodi: “los infolios de Gandía, de Levene, de Grosso, de Radaelli.”: Enrique de Gandía (1906−1995), fue historiador y miembro de diversas academias. Autor de más de cincuenta títulos, en buena parte relacionados con la historia colonial, es uno de los cinco redactores de la Historia de la Nación dirigida por Ricardo Levene. En Borges, Bioy y Borges se ocupan de él varias veces: lo mencionan entre quienes al hablar se esfuerzan por remedar el acento español y, en 1969, comentan: “El que sigue vivo es Gandía; pero es un peligro para historiadores y políticos, no para nosotros.” (1262). Gandía vuelve a ser mencionado en la crónica de Bustos Domecq “Enfoque” §2. Ricardo Levene (1885−1959), fue un historiador y jurista argentino, miembro de la Academia de la Historia; autor de múltiples obras sobre la historia argentina y director de Historia de la Nación Argentina; desde los orígenes hasta la organización definitiva en 1862, publicada en 14 volúmenes entre 1936 y 1950. Borges y Bioy tampoco muestran aprecio por Levene, de quien dicen: “y ya se sabe lo que valen nuestros historiadores, llámeles finado Levene o diligente Gandía” (Borges 774). Las obras didácticas del historiador Alfredo Bartolomé Grosso (1867−1960), fueron los textos escolares en que varias promociones de estudiantes argentinos aprendieron la historia nacional, especialmente su Nociones de Historia Argentina (1893) y Curso de Historia Nacional (1898), conocidos como el Grosso Grande y el Grosso Chico, que siguieron empleándose en la enseñanza hasta fines de los años cincuenta. Sobre el historiador Sigfrido Augusto Radaelli cf. “Doce” i §1.
third son of Jacob in the Bible
Biblical aquatic monster
Fishburn and Hughes: "Hobbes's great work of political philosophy, published in 1651, in which he discusses the nature and function of the state and the duties of the individual. The quotation which serves as epigraph is taken from the famous concluding section on 'The kingdom of darkness' in which Hobbes, for whom ethics and politics cannot be separated from religion, rails against Papists and Presbyterians for their challenge to the authority of the sovereign. Suspicious of the Papists' allegiance to Rome, he attacks them for what he terms their superstitious attachment to Aristotelian or speculative metaphysics. As the father of modern materialism, Hobbes held that the universe was corporeal, enjoying the dimensions of magnitude, namely length, breadth and depth. This belief led him to argue against the existence of an incorporeal soul, separated from the body yet feeling the torments of fire and hell. In chapter 46, 'On darkness from vain philosophy and fabulous traditions', Hobbes discusses the definition of certain basic philosophical terms such as body, time, place, matter and form. In the quotation he is mocking scholasticism for its refusal to see eternity as an endless succession of time, but rather as a standing-still of the present. This quotation is followed by a parallel discussion of place, in a paragraph whose title is more immediately related to 'The Aleph': 'One body in many places and many bodies in one place at once.' Here Hobbes argues for the separateness of places according to the division of parts, scoffing at the incongruities of the schoolmen who try to rationalise the incomprehensible by having us believe that 'by the Almighty power of God, one body may be at one and at the same time in many places; and many bodies in one and the same time in one place; as if it were an acknowledgment of the Divine Power to say that which is, is not; or that which has been has not been.'" (114)
Hobbes treatise of political philosophy, 1651
Julien Green, 1929
Argentine writer, 1904-1988, co-author with Borges of La hermana de Eloísa
Elmer Rice's wife from 1915 to 1942
English critic and author, 1817-1878, author of a Biographical History of Philosophy and other works
British pilot and writer, 1898-1997, disciple of Gurdjieff, author of The Trumpet Is Mine, 1938
C. S. Lewis, English author, 1898-1963, author of The Problem of Pain, Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, The Allegory of Love and numerous other works
US novelist, 1885-1951, author of Main Street, Babbitt, Elmer Gantry, Dodsworth and other works
English poet and painter, 1882-1937, associated with Vorticism and editor of Blast and The Enemy
US novelist and critic, born in Berlin, 1882-1955, author of The Story of American Literature
Buddha sermon on birds
Zorrilla, 1882.
chapter from the book La triloterie, by Pierre Albert-Birot, 1920
Plato's Laws, his longest and perhaps last dialogue
Murena’s novel, 1958.
Peyrou’s work, 1959.
capital of Tibet
French abbot, grammarian and writer, 1727-94, author of De viris illustribus Romae, Doctrine Chétienne en formes de lecture, and Elements de la grammaire latine
Fishburn and Hughes: "A French grammarian and historian, author of De viris illustribus urbis Romae (The Lives of Famous Romans), widely used in secondary schools in France, Belgium and Russia during the nineteenth century." (114)
minister of the so-called First Emperor of China, Shih Huang Ti
Léon Bopp novel, 1938
one of several places of this name in Malaysia, Indonesia and China
dynasty of the Tu-Bat family in southern China, fl. early 5th century A.D.
Lebanon
part of Adam von Bremen's Historia Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae
probably a reference to Irenaeus's Adversus Omnes Haereses in which there is a mention of Justin Martyr's Syntagma
Fishburn and Hughes: "An apochryphal text: perhaps an allusion to Irenaeus' second-century Refutation of all the Heresies in which the Syntagma by Justin Martyr is quoted. There is also an Adversus Omnes Haereses attributed by Jerome in his De Viris Illustribus to a certain Victorinus de Pettau (d. 304)." (114)
street in Buenos Aires
usually a term used to refer to San Martín and Bolívar, but referring here to Rubén Darío for his role in "liberating" Spanish-language poetry
Fishburn and Hughes: "A title of Simón Bolívar." (114)
Libya
Pearl Kibre, 1936
Parodi: librería que estaba ubicada en la Calle Corrientes 518. En Borges 241, una nota de Daniel Martino cita un comentario de Bioy aparecido en 1990, en el primer número de la revista El Gato Negro: “recorríamos [con Borges] las librerías de viejo de la Calle Corrientes; en una de ellas, en Corrientes y San Martín, en un piso alto, había un librero alemán o suizo alemán que no tenía mayor interés en vender libros y que más de una vez nos maltrató a Borges y a mí.”
probably the so-called Blue Book on Argentina released by the U. S. State Department in 1946
Parodi: se trata de un documento de 130 páginas, encuadernado con tapas color azul, que el Departamento de Estado de los Estados Unidos difundió en la prensa internacional bajo el título de Blue Book on Argentina −titulado en la prensa local Consulta entre las repúblicas americanas sobre la situación argentina− poco antes de las elecciones de 1946. Con graves acusaciones contra Juan Domingo Perón, el libro intentaba unificar las fuerzas opositoras para crear un movimiento antiperonista que obstaculizara el acceso de Perón a la presidencia del país. El promotor del Libro azul era Spruille Braden, que se había desempañado como Embajador de los Estados Unidos en Argentina entre abril y septiembre de 1945. A este documento, Perón respondió con una consigna electoral, “O Braden o Perón”, y con la publicación de otro texto de 130 páginas, el Libro Azul y Blanco, en el que, junto a varias personalidades políticas, respondía a las múltiples denuncias de Braden. Las elecciones de febrero de 1946 dieron una amplia victoria a Perón.
infinite book discussed in Borges story, here called Holy Writ
Borges story and the book in which it appears, 1975
Juan Ruiz, 1330 and 1343
the Asrar Nama of Farid ud-din Attar.
book of Job in the Bible
Farid ud-din Attar
López de Segura, 1561
the Manava Dharma Castra or Code of Manu, a Hindu book of law, c.200 A.D.
here, ibn abi Tair's history of the Abbasid caliphs, though Masudi's last book is also entitled The Book of Indication and Revision
Borges anthology of writings about ruins, preface dated 1978, published posthumously in 1997
Borges anthology of writings about visions, preface dated 1977, published in Italian in 1980
al-Jahiz's Book of Animals
Banchs book of poems, 1908
Book by Don Juan Manuel. Its complete title is Libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et Patronio (1330-1335).
Farid ud-din Attar
Lugones book of poems, 1917
Bible, see Reyes
Li Chi, Confucian book of rites
Parodi: uno de los Cinco Clásicos o libros canónicos creados antes de la época de Confucio. Se trata de un grupo heterogéneo de textos de diversos géneros y de diferentes fuentes, entre los que también se cuenta el I Ching (cf. supra §27). El Libro de los ritos (Li Chi o Liji) se ocupa de los principios del correcto comportamiento y la debida etiqueta, de la actitud ritual en ceremonias públicas y privadas; es un código de la conducta apropiada en cada circunstancia.
Borges-Guerrero collection, 1967
Juan Manuel book, also known as the Conde Lucanor
Rodolfo Wilcock’s book, 1940.
Firdusi, see Shah-nama
anthology compiled by Borges and Bioy Casares, 1960
Farid ud-din Attar
Farid ud-din Attar
13th century allegory from Murcia
Farid ud-din Attar
Grünberg, 1924
Egyptian book of the dead
Sicardi naturalist novel in 5 vols., 1891-1902
Parodi: ciclo de novelas en cinco volúmenes, la obra más célebre del médico y escritor Francisco Sicardi (1856-1927); las más de seiscientas páginas fueron publicadas entre 1891 y 1902. Sicardi, fiel al modelo naturalista de Emile Zola (1840-1902), narra la vida de una familia argentina a través de varias generaciones. También es autor de poemas y de piezas teatrales (La hora heroica, Misericordia). El libro extraño de César Paladión es del período 1911-1919.
Lugones book of poems, 1912
César Tiempo, 1930
Biblical Apochrypha
Fishburn and Hughes: "Apocrypha (Libros Apócrifos) Greek for 'hidden things': the name given to late Old Testament books of ambiguous status in both Jewish and Christian tradition. By the early Christians they were generally accepted, but in the fourth century the Church Fathers disagreed on whether they were 'canonical', a debate rekindled by Protestant thinkers at the Reformation. In the nineteenth century interest in the Apocrypha revived." (13)
Etruscan book of the dead
books published at the time of the Coronation of George VI, 1937
Etruscan books of divination
Cervantes exemplary novel
Cultural society formed in Granda in the XIX century.
town in Staffordshire, England
German scientist and satirist, 1742-99
French scholar of German literature
Lycia, ancient name for mountainous region of Turkey
mentioned in a Góngora poem
Lycophron of Chalcis, Alexandrian Greek poet and playwright, 3rd century B.C.
English military strategist and writer, 1895-1970, author of A History of the World War, 1914-1918, A History of the Second World War and other works
Fishburn and Hughes: "A British military historian, author of a history of World War I, first published in 1930 as The Real War, 1914-1918. The second edition, published in 1934, was called A History of the World War, 1914-1918 Liddell Hart's account of the battle of the Somme, in whose department both the river Ancre and the 'city called Albert' are to be found, was written while he was convalescing from wounds received during the campaign. Reference is made to an attack by the British 13th Division which had been postponed from 29 June to 1 July 1916; there is no mention of rain having fallen before the battle. The long bombardment which preceded the attack destroyed all chances of surprise, and it failed with heavy British losses. Only in the area Fricourt /Montauban did the British gain ground against the German defences. The exact page reference given in different editions (p. 22 and 242) is controversial, and may relate to Borges’s use of two different edition of Liddell Hart’s book." (114-15)
little English girl who became Alice in Wonderland
Un cuento de Bali, Vicki Baum, 1937
German-Jewish painter and printmaker, 1847-1935
German socialist leader, 1871-1919
Chinese equivalent of the man in the moon
Los trece Lieder, Lugones poems in Romancero
According to the biographical information in the Antología de la literatura fantástica, taoist philospoher born in China in the IV B.C.
German author and journalist, 1905-1966
May Sinclair, 1922
Morris poem, 1867
Butler work on science, 1877
Henderson biography, 1910
Irving, 1828
Sandburg biography, 1926-1939
Thomas, 1952
John Forster biography, 1872-74
Brewster, 1956
Santayana, 1905-06
Lawrence Hanson biography, 1938
Boswell biography, 1791
Twain memoir, 1883
Forster posthumous collection of stories, 1972
Poe story, 1838
line from Lugones's Luna campestre
Luz en agosto, Faulkner novel, 1932
Faulkner novel, 1932
Edwin Arnold poem on the Buddha, 1879
La luz que falló, Kipling story, 1890
German lyric poet, 1844-1909
here invoked as a typical German-Jewish surname
Jewish female demon
land discovered by Lemuel Gulliver
Fishburn and Hughes: "An imaginary island in Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726) whose inhabitants are only six inches tall. The diminutive scale of everything on the island sets off the pompous behaviour of its emperor and the intrigues of his courtiers. In Part One, ch. 2 Gulliver is asked to deliver up his belongings, which are then described in minute detail from the vantage point of the Lilliputians. Thus Gulliver's watch, 'a wonderful kind of engine', appeared to them as 'a globe, half silver, and half of some transparent metal ... which made an incessant noise, like that of a watermill'. The Lilliputians thought it must be an animal, or more probably a god. Gulliver records that the emperor 'was amazed at the continual noise it made, and the motion of the minute hand, which he could easily discern for their sight is much more acute than ours'." (115)
capital of Peru
street in Buenos Aires
Argentine humorist and writer, author of Con los nueve . . . and Pedrín
character in Bustos Domecq stories
Parodi: empleado de correos en la provincia de Buenos Aires; casado con Juana Musante; vive en El Nuevo Imparcial. El apellido vuelve a ser mencionado en “Esse” §3.
part of hell reserved for unbaptized good people
Borges poem in El hacedor, where it is attributed to Julio Platero Haedo, also the title of a plaquette of poems in 1958
Kipling collection of stories, 1932
town in Calabria in northern Spain, mentioned in poem by Baldomero Fernández Moreno
character in Bustos Domecq story
Parodi: “Señor Jorge Linares”: destinatario de las cartas de Tulio Savastano (h). La fecha mencionada permite calcular que este Tulio Savastano debe ser hijo del personaje homónimo, protagonista y narrador de “Limardo”.
Parodi: un automóvil deportivo de lujo producido por la Ford Motor Company entre 1936 y 1942.
U. S. president, 1809-65
Fishburn and Hughes: "The sixteenth President of the United States (1860-5) who fought the Civil War to preserve the Union against the secessionist states of the South. In spite of the many factions opposing 'reconstruction' at the end of the war, he was re-elected in 1864. The Republican party was divided: Lincoln's attitude of 'malice toward none with charity for all' satisfied neither the Confederacy nor his own radical Republicans, and his policy on reconstruction was far from clear. In April 1865 he showed that he was willing to move towards the extremists of his party. After a cabinet meeting on 14 April 1865 Lincoln was shot dead in the theatre by one John Wilkes Booth. He was sitting with his wife and two other guests in a box to the right of the stage. The theatre was draped in red brocade and flags in honour of the President." (115)
Edgar Lee Masters biography
ancestor of Otto Dietrich zur Linde
ancestor of Otto Dietrich zur Linde
ancestor of Otto Dietrich zur Linde
character in Borges story, perhaps related to his namesake, Otto zur Linde, German poet, 1873-1938, author of poetry inspired by Nietzsche
Australian-born British writer, 1900-1990, author of A Short History of Culture
US poet, 1879-1931
Farrel du Bosc monograph, 1937
Parodi: Bustos menciona este título como el más importante de los estudios sobre la metodología de César Paladión. Atribuye su publicación en 1937 a la célebre casa editora de París Viuda de Ch. Bouret, y señala como autor de la obra a Farrel du Bosc, un supuesto crítico literario que Borges y Bioy inventaron en 1953. En Borges 73, Bioy narra el origen de ese autor apócrifo: “Después de comer, con Borges redactamos una contratapa para Brat Farrar de Josephine Tey, un libro que ninguno de los dos ha leído y del que no sabemos nada; ni siquiera tenemos el jacket inglés: inventamos un crítico y su juicio.” Esta novela de Josephine Tey fue el volumen 103 de la colección El Séptimo Círculo, que Borges y Bioy dirigieron desde su creación en 1945 hasta 1983. En nota al pie, Daniel Martino aclara que el nombre del crítico inventado “juega con el del escritor Charles Du Bosc (o el del hispanista Raymond Foulché-Delbosc) y el del presidente Edelmiro J. Farrell” (cf. supra Modelo “A manera de Prólogo” §7). El juicio de este supuesto crítico sobre Brat Farrar, lo aporta Martino en la misma nota: “Las novelas de Josephine Tey sobresalen por su educada ironía, por su agudo conocimiento del alma humana y por el acento trágico. El manejo de la expectativa es, en todas ellas, magistral y la trama del enigma, impecable. Ninguna de ellas nos parece mejor que Brat Farrar”. Completa Martino su nota agregando que “La autoridad de ‘Farrel du Bosc’ es invocada también a favor de Midsummer Murder (1937) de Clifford Witting, publicada en 1946 en El Séptimo Círculo como Asesinato en pleno verano.” Bustos vuelve a mencionar a Farrel du Bosc en “Loomis” §10, donde le atribuye “sesudas investigaciones” sobre “Nata”, una de las obras de Loomis. En el supuesto libro de Farrell du Bosc, Paladión es alineado con dos escritores estadounidenses, el poeta, crítico y traductor Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (1885-1972), y con el poeta, dramaturgo y crítico Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965), conocido como T. S. Eliot; cf. infra.
a river in China, perhaps the Ling-Jiang
Parodi: o río Li, en parte de su recorrido atraviesa de oeste a este la provincia de Yunán.
street in Buenos Aires
Fishburn and Hughes: "A street in Buenos Aires in the lower-middle class district of Almagro." (116)
Jacques de Liniers, French officer in Spanish service, 1753-1810, viceroy of the Rio de la Plata, 1807-10
British art historian, 1904-1997, known as a leading expert on Canaletto but also the author of crime fiction
Uruguayan writer of tango lyrics, 1888-1925, author of Milonguita
story from Susana Vieyra's Mirar hacia adentro
Italian painter, c. 1406-69
Justus Lipsius or Joest Lips, Flemish scholar of Latin literature, 1547-1606
Collection of Poems that were published between 1810 and 1824.
Lisbon, capital of Portugal, ancient Olisipo
woman in Quevedo sonnet
Nouvelle by Guy de Maupassant (1882).
nickname for Miacela Cadenas, Xul Solar's wife, who created the Xul Solar Foundation in 1986
E. P. Browne work, 2 vols., 1902
magazine
book by Guillermo de Torre, 1925
Borges-Vazquez, 1966
George Kumler Anderson, 1949
here attributed to Lalou; there are works of this title by Bonnefoy, Braunschvig and others, but the closest title by Lalou is Littérature anglaise des origines à nos jours, 1957
Wyler film, 1941, based on Lillian Hellman play
Ilf and Petrov satire, 1937
Barrie romance, 1891
Graham Greene, short story.
line from Kipling's The Rhyme of the Three Sealers
Cukor film, 1933, based on Alcott novel
German scholar and archeologist, translator of the Arabian Nights
French dictionary originally compiled by Emile Littré, Dictionnaire de la langue française, 1862-1873
Dinastia
city in England
Fishburn and Hughes: "An industrial and commercial port in north-west England, once the leading cotton market of Europe, whose importance declined considerably after World War II." (116)
hotel in Borges story
Johnson biographical and critical work, 1779-1781
El cuarto en que se vive, Graham Greene play, 1954
Livy or Titus Livius, Roman historian, 59 BC-17 AD
compilation begun in 1344 at the initiative of Pedro Afonso, Conde de Barcelos, also known as the Terceiro livro de linhagens
Camilo Castelo Branco novel, 1863, continuation of Os Mysterios de Lisboa
Quevedo sonnet
Argentine essayist, a conservative nationalist
Parodi: el “señor Llambías”: aunque los datos son insuficientes para afirmarlo, el apellido podría aludir a Héctor Llambías, un escritor y docente argentino, militante del nacionalismo católico tomista, autor de ensayos sobre temas filosóficos, teológicos y políticos. Llambías fue uno de los fundadores de Nueva política, revista nacionalista y católica aparecida entre 1940 y 1943, considerada la publicación de mayor calidad dentro del nacionalismo local, en la que se reivindicaba la restauración de la tradición hispánica y católica.
Argentine dramatist, co-author with Malfatti of Asi es la vida and Los tres berretines, and of plays in which Eva Duarte starred
Borges poem in Fervor de Buenos Aires
Rulfo stories, 1953
plateau in Texas and New Mexico
line from Quevedo poem on the Duque de Osuna, "el llanto militar creció en diluvio"
grand hotel in Bariloche designed by Alejandro Bustillo
town south of Buenos Aires near Lomas de Zamora and Almirante Brown
Parodi: una localidad situada a 24 km al sur del Gran Buenos Aires; importante terminal ferroviaria.
Colombian president, 1906-90
British liberal politician, 1863-1945, prime minister from 1916 to 1922
sometimes Lull, Lulio or Lullius, Mallorcan theologian, novelist and poet, 1235?-1316?, author of Ars compendiosa inveniendi veritatem or Ars magna, Llibre de contemplacio, Arbre de Filosofia d' Amor and other works
Fishburn and Hughes: "The first major poet and prose writer in Catalan. At the age of 31 Lully repented his profligate youth and dedicated the rest of his life to religious studies and the fanatical pursuit of missionary projects, until his zeal verged on madness. An expert in Arabic, he tried to teach Christianity in Tunis and Bougie and was arrested. Finally he was stoned to death outside the walls of Bougie while campaigning against Islam. Though his writings abound in contradictions and eccentric speculations, Lully was called 'Doctor Illuminatus' in Spain and was for a while worshipped as a saint. Lully's Ars Magna Generalis (1275) is a treatise described in the frontispiece as a compendium of accessible answers to all questions on the arts and sciences. It begins by presenting three sectioned circles in which the principles governing the spiritual and physical worlds are arbitrarily set out under different letter headings. Rotating these circles on the same centre produces different letters, and Lully formulated his answers on the basis of their various combinations." (120)
Parodi: “los aparentes azares de la estadística y el Arte Combinatorio de Ramón Lull”: el teólogo, filósofo, misionero, místico y poeta mallorquín Ramón Lulio, o Llull, (1235?-1316), es autor de más de 280 obras. Bustos hace referencia a Ars magna (1274), un sistema de lengua filosófica perfecta “mediante la cual se podrá convertir a los infieles. Esta lengua pretende ser universal porque universal es la combinatoria matemática que articula su plano de la expresión, y universal es el sistema de ideas comunes a todas las gentes que Llull elabora en el plano del contenido” (Eco Ricerca 61, mi traducción C.P.). La lengua perfecta de Llull no sólo hará posible la conversión de los infieles, sino que, a lo largo de las diversas versiones del Ars, se va convirtiendo cada vez más en un instrumento apto para afrontar la enciclopedia entera del saber.
Lugones short story in Las fuerzas extrañas, 1906
Carriego poem
César Mermet book of poems, 1980, compiled by Félix della Paolera
Silvina Ocampo’s book of poetry, 1962.
Tango title, by Horacio Petrorossi
Carriego poem in La canción del barrio
character in Wells's Brynhild
provincial poet, Bustos Domecq character
Name given to chapter LXII from the Satyricon in the Antología de la literatura fantástica.
Portuguese Jesuit missionary, 1593-1678, author of a narrative of a trip to Abyssinia, included in Itinerário das suas viagens
town in province of Buenos Aires
Carriego poem
tango
character in Bustos Domecq story
character in Borges story
English philosopher, 1632-1704, author of two Treatises on Government, a treatise On Education and other works
Fishburn and Hughes: "An English philosopher whose influence upon modem thought rests chiefly on his Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Two Treatises of Government, both published in 1690. As an empiricist and anti-dogmatist, writing against the old philosophy of scholasticism, Locke examines the implications of new scientific ideas upon traditional concepts of religion and morality. The Essay is a critical assessment of the nature and purpose of understanding, claiming that, while man's understanding falls short of a total comprehension of reality, human knowledge is sufficient for the needs of mankind. Locke denies the existence of innate ideas and categories, arguing that the mind, at birth, is a tabula rasa, and that we get all our ideas from sense experience. Thus, as far as man's knowledge is concerned, general ideas are only abstractions from particular experiences. These preoccupations lead Locke to consider the nature of language and to observe its imperfections with regard to the subjective nature of its categories. Locke agreed that language is most useful when general names stand for general ideas and operations of the mind. Most of the intellectual argument of Tunes the Memorious' stems from Locke's discussion of language in book 3, ch. 1 of the Essay, in which he considers the relationship of language and things, noting that whereas 'all Things are Particulars, the far greatest part of Words that make all Languages are General Terms'. The reason for this is necessity: since it is beyond human capacity to frame and retain distinct ideas of every particular thing, it is impossible for every particular thing to have a distinct and peculiar name; secondly, it would be useless if it did because this would prevent rather than facilitate communication; thirdly, it would not serve towards the improvement of knowledge which, though founded in particular things, enlarges itself by general views." (116)
nickname for a character in Bustos Domecq
Jehudah Loewe den Bezalel, rabbi of Prague, c.1520-1609, later a character in Meyrink's Der Golem
character in Borges story
Lion Feuchtwanger's wife, here spelled Loeffler
Mil, see System of Logic
Croce, 1905
Ema Risso Platero story in Arquitecturas del insomnio
Wagner romantic opera, 1850, based on a Middle High German epic of the same name, written c.1280
Parodi: “Caruso en Lohengrin”: en el repertorio de Caruso, que incluía sobre todo óperas italianas y francesas, figuró sólo una ópera de Richard Wagner (1813-1883), “Lohengrin” (1850), que cantó en Buenos Aires, en 1901.
character in Bustos Domecq stories
Parodi: 1) supuesto empleado de la Biblioteca Calzadilla. El mote de ‘pardo’ se debe posiblemente al color de su piel; equivale a ‘mulato’. En “Víctima” aparece el Pardo Salivazo. El apellido ‘Loiácomo’ aparece en “Fiesta” §2; en Modelo iv §2 se menciona un Leonardo L. Loiácomo.
2) “Tortugo Viejo, alias Leonardo L. Loiácomo”: uno de los simpatizantes de la a.a.a.
Scandinavian god of mischief and evil, sometimes Utgarda-Loki
Nabokov novel, 1955, prohibited in Argentina in a famous censorship case
character in Miller play Death of a Salesman
southern suburb of Buenos Aires
Fishburn and Hughes: "A district in Greater Buenos Aires, south of the capital. Once known as an English quarter, through its proximity to Turdera and Morón it has become a less desirable area for the middle classes." (116)
commentator on Dante, author of La Divina Commedia di Dante Aleghieri, 1822
Lombardy, in northern Italy
Fishburn and Hughes: "A Germanic nation who ruled in northern Italy between the sixth and the eighth centuries, when they were known as Longobardi. Coming from the west of Germany, under the leadership of Alboin, the Lombards crossed the Alps in 568 and occupied the whole of north, and some areas of central and south, Italy. Their rule was brutal and merciless; when they invaded Papal territories, Pope Adrian I called on the Prankish king Charlemagne, who defeated the last Lombard king Desiderius in 774 and destroyed his kingdom." (116-17)
Italian criminologist and physician, 1835-1909, author of La Donna delinquente, Genio e follia, L'Uomo di genio and other works
Argentine composer for the tango, 1893-1950
Parodi: 1) Francisco Juan Lomuto (1893−1950) fue un célebre compositor de letras y música de centenares de tangos y otras melodías para el cine y el teatro, pianista y director de orquesta. Cf. Modelo “A manera de Prólogo” §7.
2) por analogía sonora, el apellido Lomuto es empleado como equivalente del sustantivo ‘lomo’, ‘espalda’; cf. “Limardo” i §13. Para Lomuto, empleado como apellido, cf. “Sangiácomo” i §15.
Machen autobiography, 1924
name of several periodicals published in London starting in the seventeenth century; this reference is to the magazine edited between 1919 and 1939 by J. C. Squire and then by Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
John Griffith London, US novelist, 1876-1916, author of The Sea-Wolf, The Call of the Wild, Before Adam and other works
London, England
Fishburn and Hughes: "Borges's great attachment to London may be seen in his many references to the city, which he describes on several occasions as a labyrinth: e.g., 'the red and tranquil labyrinth of London'; 'a splintered labyrinth': 'London.. .a better labyrinth'." (117)
Henn book on Yeats, 1950
island east of Manhattan
Steinbeck short stories, 1938
character in Henry James's Sacred Fount
Forster novel, 1907
US poet, 1807-82, author of Hiawatha, Evangeline and numerous other works, and translator of Dante, various Spanish poets and early Germanic poetry
city and county in Ireland
Fishburn and Hughes: "A county in central Ireland to the east of Roscommon." (117)
Whitman poem
painter in Bustos Domecq stories
Fishburn and Hughes: "see Lombards." (117)
Parodi: posible referencia a los avisos publicitarios de la fábrica de lonas y toldos “Casa Viuda de Longobardi”, importante empresa de la época.
character in Bustos Domecq story
Finnish philologist, compiler of the Kalevala, 1802-84
detective in Borges story
Fishburn and Hughes: "A fictional name emphasising the theme of 'redness' in 'Death and the Compass'. Erik is associated with Erik the Red, the tenth-century Norse explorer whose exploits are recounted in the Eriks saga. Lönnrot is associated with Elias Lönnrot, one of the founders of modern Finnish literature who edited the Kaleva, a collection of Finnish folk songs, legends and riddles." (117)
character in Bustos Domecq, author of Boina, Catre, Luna, Nata and Oso
Parodi: supuesto escritor del que Bustos Domecq se considera discípulo. Su obra consta de seis títulos: Oso, Catre, Boina, Nata, Luna y Tal vez. Bustos no excluye la posibilidad de que Loomis haya publicado un artículo en la revista Nosotros. Superando todos los condicionamientos y limitaciones del lenguaje, la literatura, los géneros, la poesía, etc., Loomis logra que cada obra conste sólo de una palabra: el título. Según Bustos, Loomis mantuvo polémicas con Leopoldo Lugones (cf. “Paladión” §5) y con los jóvenes ultraístas. Celebraba reuniones literarias en su casa de la calle Parera, a las que también asistían Gervasio Montenegro y Antártido A. Garay, pero que nunca contaron con la presencia de César Paladión. En una época solía frecuentar las reuniones del café Royal Keller (cf. infra §12). Loomis murió en 1931. Algunos discípulos continuaron su estética, pero sin respetarla. Aunque Bustos no lo menciona, tal vez merezca destacarse que el apellido Loomis coincide con uno de los apellidos paternos de Ezra Pound (cf. “Paladión” §5), cuyo nombre completo era Ezra Weston Loomis Pound.
US playwright and screenwriter, 1888-1981
street in Buenos Aires
Parodi: intersección de dos avenidas en el barrio de Villa Luro, al oeste de la ciudad.
Fishburn and Hughes: "A Spanish playwright and poet of the Golden Age. Lope de Vega led an adventurous life: he sailed in the Armada, worked in the service of various noblemen, had many love affairs and repented of his earlier exploits, becoming a priest in 1614. He then wrote religious poetry until, seduced by an actress, he returned to a worldly life. He was a prolific dramatist whose 501 extant plays (he wrote over 1,500) form the nucleus of the Spanish national theatre. His plays are derived from various sources, but are set mainly within the Spanish historical and religious tradition. They uphold the monarch's role as defender of his people's honour, and also the people's right to be free and respected whatever their social position. (See El mejor alcalde el rey, 1602/3 and Fuenteovejuna, 1619.)" (117)
Portuguese historian, c. 1378-c. 1459
common Spanish surname, here used as a sort of John Doe
Argentine artist
Spanish historian and poet, 1332-c. 1407, author of El rimado de palacio
15th century Portuguese writer, author of the Romance de don Fernando
Spanish writer, author of Libro de la invención liberal y arte de juego de axedrez, 1561
Fishburn and Hughes: "A Spanish scholar and scientist, founder of the modern system of chess expounded in his Libro de la invención liberal y arte del juego del ajedrez (1561). A classic opening move of the game is named after him." (117)
Argentine military leader and caudillo, 1822-1889
Parodi: “el jordanismo”: nombre del movimiento político que respondía a la figura de Ricardo López Jordán (1822-1889), militar y político argentino, caudillo federal de la Provincia de Entre Ríos y el último caudillo federal del país. En 1841 se enroló en el ejército bajo las órdenes de Urquiza; participó en las guerras civiles; en 1860, cuando Urquiza cesó en su cargo de Presidente de la Confederación Argentina y fue nombrado nuevamente gobernador de Entre Ríos, designó a López Jordán su Ministro de Gobierno. En 1870, López Jordán protagonizó una rebelión contra el gobierno provincial que culminó en el asesinato de Urquiza. En 1879 se exilió en Montevideo y, tras una amnistía, regresó a Buenos Aires en 1888. Poco después murió asesinado en una calle de la ciudad.
Argentine poet, 1904-1928, author of Canciones interiores, Tono menor and Las tardes
Spanish poet and journalist, 1895-1941
Mexican poet, 1888-1921, author of Suave patria, El retorno maléfico and numerous other works
Argentine caudillo, 1786-1838, governor of Santa Fe
Fishburn and Hughes: "A veteran of the Wars of Independence and caudillo of Santa Fe Province from 1818 to 1838. López was famous for the montonero tactics he learnt while fighting the Indians on the northern border, which allowed him to get the better of his less adaptable opponents in the regular armies. In 1829 he joined forces with Rosas in a successful attempt to defeat the Unitarian Lavalle." (118)
Paraguayan general and president, 1826-70, died at end of the War of the Triple Alliance
Spanish dancer, grandmother of Vita Sackville-West
character in Borges poem
Colombian poet, 1883-1950
street and plaza in Buenos Aires
Parodi: zona residencial del Gran Buenos Aires, en el límite norte con la Capital.
Argentine novelist and historian, 1815-1903
Icelander, 1124-1197, adoptive father of Snorri Sturluson
German musician and educator, 1800-1864, author of Johannes das grosze Evangelium
Wilde mystery stories, 1891
Halifax compilation, 1936
Conrad novel, 1900
Fishburn and Hughes: "The protagonist of Joseph Conrad's eponymous novel published in 1900, an Englishman who controls a small community in the island of Patusan in the Far East. Previously a chief mate of the Patna sailing the eastern oceans, Lord Jim deserts his ship with its load of pilgrims when he believes it to be sinking. The Patna does not sink, and the rest of Lord Jim's life is marred by the memory of his cowardice. When the people of Patusan are threatened by a band of thieves, Jim tries in vain to protect them by pledging his life. Having failed to avert a massacre, he redeems his past by accepting the responsibility of so many deaths and facing execution. Like Razumov in Conrad's Under Western Eyes, Lord Jim is an exemplar of ambivalence between cowardice and bravery. See José Korzeniovski." (118)
character in Conrad novel Lord Jim
the Lorraine, region in northeastern France
friend of Carriego
peasant woman on whom Don Quijote based his Dulcinea
metro station on the Rivadavia subway line in Buenos Aires
duke in Norse myth
Professor of English literature at Dartmouth College (1899-1959).
Italian-born Argentine physician, playwright and tango lyricist, 1884-1947
Parodi: Arturo Lorusso (1883-1947), un médico, farmacéutico, novelista, letrista de tangos y canciones, autor de sainetes. En 1936 obtuvo el Segundo Premio Nacional de Literatura por su novela Fuego en la Montaña.
mythical figure in Blake's prophetic books
city in California
street
street in Morón named for Santiago and Julio César Dabove
Fishburn and Hughes: "A satirical work (1772) by the Spanish poet and essayist José Cadalso y Vázquez. It attacks pseudo-erudition by offering would-be scholars lessons on how to appear to be learned without too much reading. CF 276:The reference in the English translation is to ‘would-be scholars’..." (118)
Work by Bloy, published in Le Vieux de la Montagne, 1909.
Baroja, 1919
Work by Ramón Gómez de la Serna, 1935, whose first part was published in 1933.
Bioy Casares and Silvina Ocampo, novel, 1946.
Fishburn and Hughes: "An encyclopaedia compiled at the order of Yongle, the third emperor of the Luminous Dynasty, which became known as Yongle da dian (The Great Work of Yongle), Yongle being the reign-title of the Emperor. The manuscript of 22,877 sections bound in 11,095 volumes was completed in 1408; two more copies were made in 1567. The original and one copy were destroyed in Nanjing; the other copy, kept in Hanlin Academy in Peking, was apparently already incomplete when the Academy was destroyed by fire during the Boxer uprising in 1900. A few lost volumes of the encyclopaedia are now scattered in libraries in China and elsewhere, including the British Library." (118)
D. H. Lawrence, 1920
Horizonte perdido, James Hilton novel about Shangri-La, 1933
person in the book of Genesis who flees Sodom
character in Cervantes's exemplary novel El curioso impertinente, inserted in the Quijote
Borges story, 1941
Pseudonym of Julien Viaud, 1850-1923, French novelist and naval officer
German philosopher and psychologist, 1817-1881, author of a Metaphysik, Logik, System der Philosophie and other works
Fritz von Unruh play, 1913
Haitian general and politician, leader of the black slave revolt, 1743-1803
French poet and novelist, 1870-1925
H. G. Wells novel
Work attirbuted to George Loring Frost (1916).
US writer of science fiction, 1890-1937
Morris epic based on the Laxdoela Saga
US poet, 1874-1925
US scholar, 1867-1945, author of important work on Coleridge, The Road to Xanadu
US religious scholar, 1868-1959, author of works on the early church and Kierkegaard
Enemigo leal, Anne Jackson Fremantle book on Marmaduke Pichthall, 1938
French preacher, 1827-1912, author of a work on clerical celibacy
doctor in Coronel Pringles, character in Borges story
Argentine artist, 1911-2008
Lu-chow, ancient state of China
city in western Texas
British critic, historian, and biographer, 1879-1965, author of The Craft of Fiction and other works
city in northern Germany
German film director, 1892-1947, director of Trouble in Paradise and many other films
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, Latin poet, born in Spain, 39-65, author of the Bellum Civile or Pharsalia
character in Borges story, brother of captive woman
the Gospel of Luke, in the Bible
St. Luke the Evangelist
Fishburn and Hughes: "A physician, probably a gentile, author of the third synoptic gospel. Luke's gospel addresses its message of universal salvation through the life, death and teachings of Christ to all men. Three Versions of Judas ; Luke 22:3 reads: 'Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve'; Luke 9:1 reads: 'Then he called his twelve disciples together, and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases.' The Theologians :Luke 12:59 reads: 'I tell thee, thou shalt not depart hence, till thou hast paid the very last mite.' Stemming from a passage called 'This fateful hour', it is part of a speech in which Jesus announces that his words will bring about conflicts of interpretation and loyalties, but that men must find the right course for themselves, for in the end they will have to answer for all their actions." (119)
Luzern, city and canton in Switzerland
Fishburn and Hughes: "A city in central Switzerland, during the Reformation a stronghold of Catholicism and from 1579 to 1874 the seat of the Papal Nuncio." (119)
character in Ascasubi poem
poem by August Stramm, from the book Du Liebesgedichte, 1919
Book written by general officer Tomás de Iriarte
character in Borges story
Lucian, Greek prose writer, c.125-180, author of several dialogues and of the True History
Fishburn and Hughes: "A Greek satirist, called the 'Blasphemer' for his attacks on religion. He wrote in a variety of genres, his most famous work being the True History, the first imaginary travelogue. In it Lucian claimed that, since nothing had happened to him that was worth writing about, he had turned to publishing untruths. He gave the following warning: This one thing I confidently pronounce for a truth, that I lie.' The mirror that Lucian saw in the kingdom of Endymion, which is 'that region that to us below seemed the moon', is described as follows: 'a mighty glass lying upon the top of a pit of no great depth, whereinto, if any man descends, he shall hear everything that is spoken upon the earth: if he but look into the glass, he shall see all the cities and all the nations as well as if he were among them. There had I the sight of all my friends and the whole country about: whether they saw me or not I cannot tell, but if they don't believe me they can go and look and they'll find my words true.' (See Ture History, pp.35-36)" (119)
Satan, fallen angel
Gaius Lucilius, Latin poet, c.180-102
Fishburn and Hughes: "Lucinge, Princess of see Faucigny Lucinge." (119)
Bret Harte collection of stories about the California Gold Rush, 1870
Titus Lucretius Carus, Roman poet and philosopher, c. 99-c. 55, author of De rerum natura
perhaps the Roman official, Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus, d. c. 55, who supported Cicero against Catiline and Clodius
legendary king of the Britons, d. 58 B. C.
German officer, 1865-1937
Romanized version of the name of Emil Ludwig
retired bookkeeper, Bustos Domecq character
Pseudonym of Emil Cohn, Polish-German biographer, 1881-1948, author of biographies of Bismarck, Wagner, Goethe, Michelangelo, Roosevelt and others
Parodi: “la Autobiografía del Nilo, del no menos hebreo Emil Ludwig”: pseudónimo de Emil Cohn (1881-1948), escritor polaco-alemán, célebre a partir de los años veinte cuando comenzó a publicar biografías de personajes históricos en las que combinaba los hechos reales con la ficción y el análisis de corte psicológico. Entre otras, escribió las biografías de Beethoven, Goethe, Napoleón, Bismarck, Jesucristo, Hindenburg, Wagner, Miguel Ángel, Roosevelt, Lincoln, Stalin, Bolívar. Bustos atribuye al libro de Ludwig el género ‘autobiográfico’. En 1936 se publicaron los dos volúmenes de Der Nil. Lebenslauf eines Stromes, traducido al castellano y editado en varias ocasiones con diversos títulos: El Nilo. La vida de un río, El Nilo. Biografía de un río y El Nilo. Historia de un gran río. En El Hogar (23 de julio de 1937), Borges menciona esta obra de Ludwig y comenta: “Agotados los hombres, se recurre a los ríos y a los símbolos. Emil Ludwig publicó una torrencial biografía del Nilo; Hermann Wendel, para celebrar el primer centenario de la muerte de Claude Rouget de Lisle, ha publicado La Marsellesa. Biografía de un himno.” (“Siguen arreciando las biografías” OC IV: 304).
Old High German alliterative poem on Frankish defeat of the Norsemen in 881
place in Germany, perhaps present Lüneberg
Barbusse, 1920
city in canton of Ticino in Switzerland
Roman name for Lyon
Argentine poet, short-story writer, historian, critic and political figure, 1874-1938, author of Los crepúsculos del jardín, Lunario sentimental, Odas centenares, El imperio jesuítico, El payador, Las fuerzas extrañas, Romances de Río Seco and numerous other works
Fishburn and Hughes: "An Argentine poet, journalist and short-story writer. Most of Lugones's poetical work, though prodigiously varied, reflects the influence of the Spanish American modernist movement headed by Rubén Darío and of French symbolism (e.g. Lunario sentimental, 1909 and Romancero, 1924). Lugones was active in politics, first as a socialist but later as a nationalist and a supporter of fascism. Becoming involved in public education, he was nominated director of the Biblioteca de Maestros in Buenos Aires. Borges's attitude towards Lugones changed through the years. Though in an early work he accused him of not having a single idea of his own (Esperanza 1926) and renamed his Lunario 'Nulario' ('a nothing'), nevertheless in his monograph on Lugones, perhaps as a result of his critical work on Sarmiento and Martín Fierro, he called him 'the greatest writer of Argentina'. In a prologue to more than one of his texts (El hacedor, El otro, El mismo, Leopoldo Lugones), perhaps to make up for the harshness of his previous criticism, he imagines himself presenting his work to an amiable Lugones, who in real life had never liked it." (119)
Parodi: “una polémica circunstancial con Lugones hacia 1909 ni con los corifeos del joven ultraísmo, después”: en 1909, la publicación de Lunario sentimental (cf. infra §2) dio pie a varias polémicas. Para Leopoldo Lugones, la rima era el elemento esencial de la poesía (Lunario, prólogo) y se oponía al verso libre, empleado por los martinfierristas, juzgado por Lugones como “un recurso de impotencia”, de pereza. En “Las nuevas generaciones” literarias” (cf. Cautivos 261), afirma Borges: “la rima es menos imprescindible de lo que cree Leopoldo Lugones. / La importancia de esa opinión fue considerable. Nos permitió no parecer lo que éramos: involuntarios y fatales alumnos −sin duda la palabra ‘continuadores’ queda mejor− del abjurado Lunario sentimental. Lugones publicó ese volumen el año 1909. Yo afirmo que la obra de los poetas de Martín Fierro y Proa −toda la obra anterior a la dispersión que nos dejó ensayar o ejecutar obra personal− está prefigurada, absolutamente, en algunas páginas del Lunario. […] Lugones exigía, en el prólogo, riqueza de metáforas y de rimas. Nosotros, doce y catorce años después, acumulamos con fervor las primeras y rechazamos ostentosamente las últimas. Fuimos los herederos tardíos de un solo perfil de Lugones.”
editor of 1948 edition of Hernández's Martín Fierro
Ludwig II of Bavaria, 1845-86
Spanish preacher and religious writer, 1504-66, author of Introducción de symbolo de la Fe, Guía de pecadores and other works
Spanish poet, Biblical translator and didactic writer, 1527?-1591, author of La perfecta casada, De los nombres de Cristo, "La vida retirada" and other works
Louis I or Louis the Pious, French king, son of Charlemagne, 778-840
Louis II or Louis the Stammerer, French king, 846-879
Holy Roman Emperor, ruled 855-75
Louis III of France, c. 863-882
French king, 1638-1715
French king, 1754-93
Fishburn and Hughes: "The king of France executed during the Revolution. When the royal family was escaping in disguise, Louis was recognised at Varennes by the resemblance to his effigy on a Louis coin." (118)
state in United States
town in province of Buenos Aires, famous for its miraculous Virgin
historical museum near pilgrimage church in Lujan
river that flows through Luján and then into the Paraná at Tigre
character in Bustos Domecq
Parodi: 1) al igual que en “Signo”, Lumbeira es el oyente callado de la historia que cuenta Mascarenhas.
2) “Como dijo Lumbeira, fagocitemos bien la tradición antes de tirarla a los chanchos”: por el apellido del personaje citado y por su vinculación con la cría de cerdos, este Lumbeira puede relacionarse con el silencioso oyente de “El testigo” y “El signo”.
Cansinos Assens autobiographical novel, 1924
Fishburn and Hughes: "Probably a reference to the Ming Dynasty of China (ming: bright) which lasted from 1368 to the Manchu invasion in 1644, when the last Ming Emperor, Ts'ung-cheng, committed suicide. The the third Emperor of the dynasty, Zhu Di, in the first year of his reign (1403) ordered the compilation of an encyclopaedic work containing 'all known literature'. See Lost Encyclopaedia." (120)
Italian scholar of Ariosto
character in Borges-Bioy filmscript
moon
modern Luni, ancient city of Etruria
Loomis book, 1924
Parodi: “Luna (1924) […] el sésamo que le abre de par en par la puerta grande del Parnaso”: Bustos considera Luna el logro más poético del autor y la equipara a “Sésamo ábrete”, la fórmula mágica que, según la narración de Las mil y una noches, permitió a Alí Babá entrar en la cueva de los ladrones y apoderarse del tesoro.
Lugones poem in Lunario sentimental
Borges book of poems, 1925
in San Cristobal Norte neighborhood in Buenos Aires
in Rome
Parodi: “el Luna Park de la Ciudad Eterna”: el Luna Park de París fue un célebre parque de atracciones inaugurado en 1909 y que se mantuvo en funcionamiento hasta 1931.
Argentine journalist, writer and screenwriter of the 1940s and 1950s
Borges poem in La moneda de hierro
Lugones collection of poems, plays and short prose, 1909
city in southern Sweden
Fishburn and Hughes: "A city of Sweden, ten miles from Malmö, mentioned in tenth-century sagas. In the Middle Ages Lund was the capital of Denmark, and it remained the object of contention between Sweden and Denmark until it finally passed to Sweden in 1658, becoming a Lutheran bishopric." (120)
Fishburn and Hughes: "A term originating from the French 'Lombard'; the meaning 'thief dates from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the Lombards were bankers and usurers in Paris. CF 370: as appears from the English translation, the term is now given by extension to the slang used by the riff-raff of Buenos Aires and surrounding areas. Much of its vocabulary has crept into colloquial argentinismo (Argentinian speech)." (120)
Chinese dragon
Rodolfo Wilcock’s work, 1961.
Spanish poet, 1897-1968
Jewish cabalist, 1534-1572
Fishburn and Hughes: "A Cabbalist, also known as 'The Lion', who was born in Jerusalem, spent his formative years in Egypt and became an important figure at the centre of Cabbalist teaching in Safed in northern Galilee. Luria's only written work is a commentary on the 'Book of Concealment' (a section of the Zohar), though he had numerous disciples in Safed who recorded his teachings. The primary concepts of the Lurianic Cabbala seek to explain the existence of evil by linking it to the mystical doctrine of metempsychosis. According to the school of Luria, each human soul is a spark from Adam, divorced from its original source from the time of the Fall but destined to return to it with the coming of the Messiah. Until then, however, it has to wander through all forms of existence, not only through the bodies of men, but through inorganic matter. Ideas of metempsychosis may have entered Judaism from Indian philosophy, or from Orphic and Neoplatonic teachings. Luria elaborated on a particular aspect of this doctrine known as Ibbur." (121)
Argentine writer and critic. She coauthored some works with her husband Arturo Cancela (1914-1967).
Camoes epic poem about the history of Portugal and the exploits of Vasco da Gama, 1572
Burton translation, 1880
medieval dynasty from the Poitou region of France who were important in the kingdoms of Cyprus and Jerusalem
Roman name for Portugal
poem by Johannes Becher, from An Europa, 1916.
Portuguese empire
in Greek mythology, brother of Bacchus
Uruguayan gauchesque poet, 1848-1928
The father of Antonio Dionisio Lussich. He was a Austrian sailor and entrepreneur.
Luther, German leader of the Protestant Reformation, 1483-1546, translator of the Bible
Fishburn and Hughes: "A German religious reformer of intense vitality who inaugurated the Reformation on 31 October 1517 by fixing on the church door at Wittenburg his ninety-five theses against the penitential system of the Church and the sale of indulgences by the Dominican Johann Tetzel. For this act he was excommunicated by Pope Leo X and his writings were burnt. Luther based his doctrine on the individual responsibility of all believers for adherence to the truth as expressed in the bible and on salvation by the grace of God alone. When in 1521 he was summoned by Charles V to the Diet of Worms he made the celebrated speech which ended with the words: 'Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise, God help me, amen.' In 1525 he married a nun who had renounced her vows. Luther's greatest influence on the German people was through his translation of the bible. He completed it in 1532, but revised it constantly until 1545. Through his translations and other writings he may also be regarded as the founder of the present literary language of Germany, that is, of New High German." (121)
Persian poet and biographer, 1711-1781, author of the Atashkadah, Temple of Fire, an anthology of Persian poets
Fishburn and Hughes: (1711-1781). "A Persian poet and biographer, best known for his Atashkadah ('Temple of Fire'), a collection of biographies of Persian poets with an anthology of their poems. Though Borges is correct in referring to Luft as a 'dervish', for he became so in later life, the attribution of 'polygraph' seems less suitable, since his only other known work is a fairly slender Divan, or collection of poems. The story of 'the copper astrolabe' of Shiraz has not been traced in Atashkadah." (121)
magazine mentioned in Pierre Menard
Mastronardi poem
Manuel Bernardes, Portuguese seventeenth-century work
name for Lucifer
Licántropo, Eden Phillpotts, 1938
school in the sixteenth arrondissement of Paris
woman in Horace odes
English geologist, 1797-1875
Eden Phillpotts, novel, 1897.
Argentine novelist and short-story writer, 1885-1951
Argentine folklorist, 1851-1853, author of Cancionero bonaerense
city in France
in Arthurian legend, a region in southwest England
New York gangster
Wordsworth-Coleridge collection of poems, 1798
Wordsworth preface to the second edition, 1800
perhaps a reference to the Café Lyrique in Geneva
Heine collection of lyric poems, 1823, originally published between two tragedies
ghost in Lord Halifax's Ghost Book