Góngora en el primer Borges: «Culteranismo», El idioma de los argentinos (1928)

Abstract

In 1928, Borges published his third book of essays, El idioma de los argentinos [The Language of the Argentines]. There he dedicates an essay to discussing what he supposes to be Góngora’s poetics: because of their historiographical context, Borges associates them with the misnamed culteranismo, which is the title of the essay. The analysis of this early text shows that, despite its paradoxical criticism, Borges «saves» the tools of Baroque poetry: metaphor, mythology, the return to Latin. These tools will constitute the axis of Borges’ own poetic construction when he returns to poetry with El hacedor [The Maker, sometimes also translated as Dreamtigers] in 1960.

Keywords

• gongorism
• Góngora
• Borges
• baroque
• culteranism