Consolidating the Postcolonial Agenda
Consolidating the Postcolonial Agenda
Culture and Politics in Selected Writings of the 1950s and 1960s
This chapter complements preceding analyses with coverage of themes including language, River Plate identity, self and other, and the contribution of Borges’s family line to the literary tradition of Argentina and beyond. Poems studied include ‘Alexander Selkirk’, in which Borges rewrites the Robinson Crusoe narrative, and ‘El forastero’/‘The Stranger’ (also translatable as ‘The Outsider’), which is read in a geopolitical light. The chapter devotes attention to the poem, ‘España’/‘Spain’, which gives prominence to Iberian influences on Borges and his view of Argentina. Authors studied include Cervantes and Quevedo, and William (Guillermo) Hudson, who is an example of cultural ‘crossing-over’ much admired by Borges. An essay on Edward FitzGerald and Omar Khayyam is a rich source of observations on relations between East and West and a critique of the assumptions of the Victorian English establishment.
Keywords: language, identity, Omar Khayyam, cross-cultural translation, creole ethnicity, Cervantes, Quevedo, William Hudson, Edward FitzGerald
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