The Oldest Trick in the Book: Borges and the "Rhetoric of Immediacy''
In his most "philosophical'' texts, Jorge Luis Borges paradoxically posits the act of reading as the scene of affectively "immediate" experience: his reader reads a reader reading ( ad infinitum ). This sort of hyper-meditated, specular imitation actually comes to mirror the...
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1993-06-01
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Online Access: | http://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol17/iss2/4 |
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doaj-9f878ac1325e433a84842b79de8340db2020-11-24T23:34:00ZengNew Prairie PressStudies in 20th & 21st Century Literature2334-44151993-06-0117210.4148/2334-4415.13225631245The Oldest Trick in the Book: Borges and the "Rhetoric of Immediacy''James WinchellIn his most "philosophical'' texts, Jorge Luis Borges paradoxically posits the act of reading as the scene of affectively "immediate" experience: his reader reads a reader reading ( ad infinitum ). This sort of hyper-meditated, specular imitation actually comes to mirror the substantive preoccupation of the "philosophical" text itself. Borges thereby breaks down what Theodor Adorno calls "concept fetishism'' by making mimesis his textual concept . Given Italo Calvino's claim for the novelty of "The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim" in relation to modern genres, I propose a two-fold thesis: first, that this typically Borgesian narrative juxtaposes concept and mimesis (a traditional philosophical antinomy) and then subverts the difference between them as a mediation of immediacy itself . He creates thereby a second-level "rhetoric of immediacy." Borges thus arrives at a re-inscription of the kind of narrative technique upon which traditional texts, even texts that form a part of a sacred canon, operate. The drama and rhetoric of immediacy exploited by Borges—and what is allegory, if not a "rhetorical drama''?—far from amounting to the last innovation of modem forms, as Calvino claims, might more accurately be called the oldest trick of presence in the book of absence.http://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol17/iss2/4 |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
James Winchell |
spellingShingle |
James Winchell The Oldest Trick in the Book: Borges and the "Rhetoric of Immediacy'' Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature |
author_facet |
James Winchell |
author_sort |
James Winchell |
title |
The Oldest Trick in the Book: Borges and the "Rhetoric of Immediacy'' |
title_short |
The Oldest Trick in the Book: Borges and the "Rhetoric of Immediacy'' |
title_full |
The Oldest Trick in the Book: Borges and the "Rhetoric of Immediacy'' |
title_fullStr |
The Oldest Trick in the Book: Borges and the "Rhetoric of Immediacy'' |
title_full_unstemmed |
The Oldest Trick in the Book: Borges and the "Rhetoric of Immediacy'' |
title_sort |
oldest trick in the book: borges and the "rhetoric of immediacy'' |
publisher |
New Prairie Press |
series |
Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature |
issn |
2334-4415 |
publishDate |
1993-06-01 |
description |
In his most "philosophical'' texts, Jorge Luis Borges paradoxically posits the act of reading as the scene of affectively "immediate" experience: his reader reads a reader reading ( ad infinitum ). This sort of hyper-meditated, specular imitation actually comes to mirror the substantive preoccupation of the "philosophical" text itself. Borges thereby breaks down what Theodor Adorno calls "concept fetishism'' by making mimesis his textual concept . Given Italo Calvino's claim for the novelty of "The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim" in relation to modern genres, I propose a two-fold thesis: first, that this typically Borgesian narrative juxtaposes concept and mimesis (a traditional philosophical antinomy) and then subverts the difference between them as a mediation of immediacy itself . He creates thereby a second-level "rhetoric of immediacy." Borges thus arrives at a re-inscription of the kind of narrative technique upon which traditional texts, even texts that form a part of a sacred canon, operate. The drama and rhetoric of immediacy exploited by Borges—and what is allegory, if not a "rhetorical drama''?—far from amounting to the last innovation of modem forms, as Calvino claims, might more accurately be called the oldest trick of presence in the book of absence. |
url |
http://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol17/iss2/4 |
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