Professor Borges - A Course on English Literature

naturalist, conservationist, writer, and critic. He wrote a biography of Johnson in 1944, and taught at Columbia University from 1937–52. His autobiography,
More Lives Than One
, was published in 1962.
18. Selections of Edward Gibbon’s
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
are found in volume 27 of
Biblioteca personal
. Arnold Toynbee (1889–1975), English historian.
    CLASS 11

1. Oswald Spengler (1880–1936), German philosopher. The work Borges is referring to, whose original title in German is
Der Untergang des Abendlandes
, was published in two volumes between 1918 and 1922.
From
The Decline of the West
, volume 2, part 1, chapter IV.
2. Gray’s poem titled “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” was first published in 1751. The poem was inspired by the graveyard of the church in Stoke Podges in Buckinghamshire, England, where Gray himself is buried.
3. José Antonio Miralla (1789–1825), Argentine poet and fighter for independence, born in Cordoba, Argentina. When in England, he did an admirable translation into Spanish of Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.” Among his works are also included
A la Muerte de Mr. William Winston, La Libertad,
and
La Palomilla Ausente.
4. Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744–1803), German philosopher.
5. Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836–1870), a Spanish post-romantic writer of poetry and stories, is a major figure of Spanish literature. Heinrich Heine (1797–1856), German poet and essayist.
6. Corrientes is a province in northeast Argentina. Guaraní is spoken by communities there.
7. By James Macpherson, published in 1760.
8. He is referring to Hugh Blair (1718–1800), a famous priest, friend of Alexander Carlyle, Adam Ferguson, Adam Smith, and James Macpherson, for whom Blair wrote
A Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian, the Son of Fingal
(1763). The book of rhetoric Borges is referring to is
Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres
, published in 1783 and used as a textbook until well into the nineteenth century.
9.
Fingal: Ancient Epic Poem in Six Books
was published in 1762. One year later, Macpherson published a supposedly new collection of Celtic legends and poems called
Temora: An Ancient Epic Poem in Eight Books.
10. Johannes Scotus Eriugena (ca. 830–880), Irish philosopher and theologian.
11. “The English park with its atmospheric suggestion, which supplanted the French about 1750 and abandoned the great perspective idea of the latter in favour of the “Nature” of Addison, Pope and sensibility, introduced into its stock of motives perhaps the most astonishing bizarrerie ever perpetrated, the artificial ruin, in order to deepen the historical character in the presented landscape,” Oswald Spengler,
The Decline of the West
(Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 134.
12. The word Borges is referring to is probably “baritus,” a term used by Tacitus in his
Germania
. “They say that Hercules, too, once visited them; and when going into battle, they sing of him first of all heroes. They have also those songs of theirs, by the recital of which (‘baritus,’ they call it), they rouse their courage, while from the note they augur the result of the approaching conflict. For, as their line shouts, they inspire or feel alarm. It is not so much an articulate sound, as a general cry of valor.”
The Agricola and Germania
, trans. A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb (London: Macmillan, 1877), 87–110. The origin of this word is unknown. It has been associated with the Celtic bards, as well as the sounds made by elephants.
13. Melchiore Cesarotti (1730–1808), Italian poet and essayist. His verse translation of Macpherson’s work is called
Poesie di Ossian
(1763–72).
14. Macpherson’s texts also attracted the romantic musicians. Between 1815 and 1817, the celebrated Austrian, Franz Schubert, put to music more than ten long texts of Ossian, which came to him in German translations by E. Baron de Harold. In a newspaper article as late as 1843, the German composer Robert Schumann (who was also a writer) mentioned the premier of an overture dedicated to Ossian,
Nachklänge aus Ossian
, by the young Danish composer Niels Gade.
15.
Reliques of Ancient English Poetry
(1765). The author, whom Borges mentions below, was the English scholar and bishop Thomas Percy (1729–1811), not Gray.
    CLASS 12

1. Alfonso Reyes (1889–1959), Mexican writer and diplomat. Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936), Spanish writer and philosopher.
2.