Making Borges Lies Wijnterp
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PDF hosted at the Radboud Repository of the Radboud University Nijmegen The following full text is a publisher's version. For additional information about this publication click this link. http://hdl.handle.net/2066/150648 Please be advised that this information was generated on 2021-10-05 and may be subject to change. MAKING BORGES Lies Wijnterp MAKING BORGES: THE EARLY RECEPTION OF JORGE LUIS BORGES’S WORK IN FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES LIES WIJNTERP MAKING BORGES: THE EARLY RECEPTION OF JORGE LUIS BORGES’S WORK IN FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen op gezag van de rector magnificus volgens besluit van het college van decanen in het openbaar te verdedigen op donderdag 14 januari 2016 om 16.30 uur precies door Lies Wijnterp geboren op 15 september 1982 te Enter PhD Thesis Radboud University Nijmegen ISBN: 978-94-6259-986-4 Print: Ipskamp Lay out: Book Builders Cover: D. N. H. Nguyen Copyright © 2015: Lies Wijnterp. All rights reserved. Financial support was received from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) for the research project “A Deep Need in Contemporary Fiction. A Polysystemic Approach to the International Reception of Jorge Luis Borges.” MAKING BORGES: THE EARLY RECEPTION OF JORGE LUIS BORGES’S WORK IN FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen op gezag van de rector magnificus volgens besluit van het college van decanen in het openbaar te verdedigen op donderdag 14 januari 2016 om 16.30 uur precies door Lies Wijnterp geboren op 15 september 1982 te Enter Promotor prof. dr. M. Steenmeijer Copromotoren dr. M. P. J. Sanders dr. B. Y. A. Adriaensen Manuscriptcommissie prof. dr. A. C. Montoya prof. dr. J. T. J. Bak dr. I. Logie (Universiteit Gent, België) prof. dr. D. Balderston (University of Pittsburgh, Verenigde Staten) prof. dr. E. Andringa (Universiteit Utrecht) Table of Contents Acknowledgements ........................................................................................ 9 PART I: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................... 13 Chapter 1. A review of the literature on the reception of Borges’s work ............. 15 1. Making Borges ........................................................................................................................................ 15 2. A review of the literature on the reception of Borges’s work in France ......................................... 22 3. A review of the literature on the reception of Borges’s work in the United States ...................... 29 4. Works cited .............................................................................................................................................. 31 Chapter 2. The study of mediators of Borges’s work ........................................................ 37 1. Individual mediators and their (key) positions ................................................................................. 37 2. Mediators and their norms: The selection and classification of Borges’s work ............................ 44 3. Organizations, institutions, and national fields: The transmission of norms ................................ 53 4. The international literary field: The diffusion of translated literature ........................................... 63 5. An account of the selected material and time period ........................................................................ 72 6. Works cited .............................................................................................................................................. 77 PART II: BORGES IN FRANCE (1923-1964) ....................................................... 87 Chapter 1. Early translations and publications of Borges’s work in France ........ 89 1. Publishing houses and the positions of key publishers, editors, and translators in the early reception of Borges’s work in France ...................................................................................................... 93 2. Néstor Ibarra and the origins of Borges’s “Hispano-Anglo-Portuguese” origins ...................... 104 3. Roger Caillois and Fictions: Between the universal and the picturesque ..................................... 112 4. Roger Caillois and Labyrinthes: Reflecting on the structure of the universe ................................ 122 5. Roger Caillois, Néstor Ibarra, and Paul Bénichou: Translating Borges away ............................. 131 6. Conclusion: Borges as a French invention? ...................................................................................... 144 7. Works cited ............................................................................................................................................ 147 Chapter 2. Early criticism of Borges’s work in France .................................................... 159 1. Literary criticism and the positions of key critics in the early reception of Borges’s work in France ......................................................................................................................................................... 159 2. Paul Bénichou, Maurice Nadeau, and four more peripheral critics: Borges’s fantastique métaphysique ............................................................................................................................................... 171 3. René Étiemble: The classification of Borges as a cosmopolitan writer ......................................... 199 4. Maurice Blanchot: Borges’s work as an honest mystification ........................................................ 209 5. Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier: The secret of the universe in Borges’s work ..................... 220 6. Gérard Genette: “La forme moderne du fantastique, c’est l’érudition” ....................................... 231 7. Conclusion: Unity within diversity ................................................................................................... 241 8. Works cited ............................................................................................................................................ 246 PART III: BORGES IN THE UNITED STATES (1934-1968) ................................ 261 Chapter 1. Early translations and publications of Borges’s work in the United States ............................................................................................................................................................ 263 1. Publishing houses and the positions of key publishers, editors, and translators in the early reception of Borges’s work in the United States .................................................................................. 267 2. Labyrinths and Ficciones: Two competing book translations .......................................................... 274 3. The matter of translation: Maintaining or smoothing out Borges’s style ..................................... 284 4. Borges as an author figure and as a mediator .................................................................................. 299 5. Conclusion: Presenting Borges’s peculiarness to the public .......................................................... 309 6. Works cited ............................................................................................................................................ 316 Chapter 2. Early criticism of Borges’s work in the United States ............................ 325 1. Literary criticism and the positions of key critics in the early reception of Borges’s work in the United States ............................................................................................................................................. 325 2. Anthony Boucher: Borges and the emancipation of the detective story ...................................... 336 3. Saul Maloff: The genre of the parable and Borges’s terrifying world .......................................... 342 4. Paul de Man: Borges’s style of distorted duplication ..................................................................... 351 5. John Updike: Borges’s unreality grafted onto realism .................................................................... 359 6. John Barth: The technical and the human in Borges’s work .......................................................... 367 7. Conclusion: A crisis in literary criticism? ......................................................................................... 381 8. Works cited ............................................................................................................................................ 388 PART IV: CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................. 401 1. Conclusions: Making Borges’s work abroad .................................................................................... 403 2. Works cited ............................................................................................................................................ 413 Chronological bibliographies .......................................................................................................... 415 1. Notes on the chronological bibliographies ....................................................................................... 415 2. Individual translations of Borges’s work in France ........................................................................