Borges: Characteristics of Nationality, Nationalism Problems

Abstract

In order to understand how the discussion on literary nationality expressed in Jorge Luis Borges’ literary works, we analyse three different essays. They were written by the Argentine author between the 1920s-50s –“Queja de todo criollo” (1926), “Nuestro pobre individualismo” (1946) and “El escritor argentino y la tradición” (1953) – in which he debates problems related to nationalist views in Argentine literature, especially issues about criollismo, gauchesca poetry (with an emphasis on Martín Fierro, José Hernández’s epic) and the relations between Latin American writers and the European literary tradition. To better comprehend Borges’ position on the subject, we refer to the studies written by Antonio Candido (“Literatura e subdesenvolvimento”) and Silviano Santiago (“O entre-lugar do discurso latino-americano”) about the problems of imitation and assimilation in Latin American literatures. Lastly, we find in Machado de Assis precursory elements of Borges’ discussions, as those were pointed out by Leyla Perrone-Moisés in “Machado de Assis e Borges: nacionalismo e cor local”.