Professor Borges - A Course on English Literature

Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636–1711), French poet and critic.
6. This English–Italian Dictionary was published in 1598 by the lexicographer and translator Giovanni Florio (1553–1652).
7. Noah Webster (1758–1843), American lexicographer. In 1806, Webster published his
Compendious Dictionary of the English Language
, and in 1828,
An American Dictionary
, a much more exhaustive dictionary.
8. Borges is probably remembering line 48 of the poem, “The Vanity of Human Wishes,” in which Johnson talks about the hardships endured by anyone who chooses the profession of writer. In the first edition of this poem, from 1749, Johnson wrote the line, “Toil, Envy, Want, the Garret, and the Jail.” After his bitter experience with Lord Chesterfield, who refused to help him, Johnson changed the poem, substituting “garret” with “patron” in his list of ills: “Toil, Envy, Want, the Patron, and the Jail.”
    CLASS 9

1. When Johnson began his dictionary, he approached Lord Chesterfield as a potential patron, but Chesterfield gave him only a token sum. Seven years later, after Johnson had completed his task, Lord Chesterfield published two essays in the
World
magazine, in which he congratulated him. Johnson replied by publishing a letter in which he reminded him of his prior attitude, writing, among other things, “Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?”
The Rambler, was a two-penny sheet of essays Johnson published for several years.
2. Samuel Johnson,
La historia de Raselas, príncipe de Abisinia
, translation and prologue by Mariano de Vedia y Mitre (Buenos Aires: Editorial Guillermo Kraft Limitada [Colección Vértice]), 1951.
3. The manuscript that tells of Father Lobo’s experiences in Abyssinia, originally written in Portuguese, wasn’t published until it was translated into French by Abad Legrand. Legrand’s translation was published in 1728 with the title:
Voyage historique d’Abissinie du R.P. Jerome Lobo de la Compagnie de Jesus; traduit du Portugais; continuée et augm. de plusieurs dissertations, lettres et memoires par M. Le Grand.
4. “Barlaam and Josaphat” is a Christian adaptation of the legend of Buddha, written in Greek in the seventh century by a monk named Juan of the Sabbas monastery near Jerusalem. This work was widely read in the Middle Ages and influenced many Spanish-language writers, among them Lope de Vega, Raimundo Lulio, and Don Juan Manuel.
5. Alfonso Reyes (1889–1959), Mexican writer, philosopher, and diplomat. This passage can be found in an essay called
“Un precursor teórico de la aviación en el siglo XVII.”
6. Antoine Galland (1646–1715), French Orientalist and scholar. He is best known for his French adaptation of
The Arabian Nights
, titled
Mille et une Nuits
, a free adaptation based on Syrian manuscripts. Borges critiques and compares the many translations of this work in his essay, “The Translators of the 1001 Nights,” in
A History of Eternity
(1936). Borges also includes a selection of Galland’s translation as volume 52 in his
Biblioteca personal
from Hyspamérica.
7. One of the three divisions of Ancient Egypt, also called Upper Egypt, whose capital was Thebes. At the end of the third century, the first Christian hermits took refuge in the desert in the western part of this region to escape persecution by the Romans.
8. Sir Thomas Browne (1605–82). He wrote
Religio medici
around 1635. His other works include
Pseudodoxia epidemic
(1646),
Urn Burial
(1658), and, mentioned here below,
The Garden of Cyrus
(1658).
This sentence can be found in one of the last paragraphs of
The Garden of Cyrus
. In this passage, the author comments on how deceptive the images of plants in dreams can be, and mentions that dreaming impoverishes the sense of smell: “Beside
Hippocrates
hath spoke so little and the Oneirocriticall Masters, have left such frigid Interpretations from plants, that there is little encouragement to dream of Paradise it self. Nor will the sweetest delight of Gardens afford much comfort in sleep; wherein the dulnesse of that sense shakes hands with delectable odours; and though in the Bed of
Cleopatra
, can hardly with any delight raise up the ghost of a Rose” (chapter V).
9. In chapter 32 of
Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia.
10. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), German philosopher and mathematician.
11. Thomas Babington