Borges, Buddhism And World Literature: A Morphology Of Renunciation Tales (Literatures Of The Americas)
Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN13:
9783030047160
$61.47
This book follows the renunciation story in Borges and beyond, arguing for its centrality as a Borgesian compositional trope and as a Borgesian prism for reading a global constellation of texts. The renunciation story at the heart of Buddhism, that of a king who leaves his palace to become an ascetic, fascinated Borges because of its cross-cultural adaptability and metamorphic nature, and because it resonated so powerfully across philosophy, politics and aesthetics. From the story and its many variants, Borgess essays formulated a 'morphological' conception of literature (borrowing the idea from Goethe), whereby a potentially infinite number of stories were generated by transformation of a finite number of 'archetypes'. The king-and-ascetic encounter also tells a powerful political story, setting up a confrontation between power and authority; Borgess own political predicament is explored against the rich background of truth-telling renouncers. In its poetic variant, the renunciation archetype morphs into stories about art and artists, with renunciation a key requirement of the creative process: the discussion weaves in and out of Borges to highlight modern writers debt to asceticism. Ultimately, the enigmatic appeal of the renunciation story aligns it with the open-endedness of modern parables.
- | Author: Dominique Jullien
- | Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
- | Publication Date: Jan 18, 2019
- | Number of Pages: 151 pages
- | Language: English
- | Binding: Hardcover
- | ISBN-10: 3030047164
- | ISBN-13: 9783030047160
- Author:
- Dominique Jullien
- Publisher:
- Palgrave Macmillan
- Publication Date:
- Jan 18, 2019
- Number of pages:
- 151 pages
- Language:
- English
- Binding:
- Hardcover
- ISBN-10:
- 3030047164
- ISBN-13:
- 9783030047160