Everyone and No One: Jorge Luis Borges and Shakespeare Essay -- Literar

I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved all the cities that I have visited, all my ancestors . . . Perhaps I would have liked to be my father, who wrote and had the decency of not publishing. Nothing, nothing, my friend what I have told you I am not sure of anything, I know nothing . . . Can you imagine that I do not even know the date of my death? (Borges-Quotations)The work of Jorge Luis Borges has been the subject of much literary criticism and research. Scholars have spent entire lifetimes attempting to pinpoint the meaning of his works. The occurrence that many of them use the above citation to do so sums up the enigma of Borges the quote most likely to be used to explain him cannot be authenticated. In seventy-four short stories, over one hundred sonnets and thousands of essays, reviews, lectures, literature introductions and notes, the quote found in many quote collections an d in an abundance of text file on the author may not be his words at all.Far from this paradox disproving any theories on the themes and intentions of Borges, the very fact that writers continue quote to quote this passage illustrates his thoughts on memory, identity and authorship perfectly. Memory is malleable and transferrable. Memory is identity. Authorship is identity. Therefore, authorship is memory and is malleable and transferrable. There is no define work from Borges defining these themes. Even to apply them to his fictions, one must absorb them all.The fictions of Borges are brief, many as short as three pages. One of these (at eightsome pages) was the last story he wrote, Shakespeares Memory. Published after his death in 1986, he touc... ...inberger. spic-and-span York Penguin Putnam, 1999. 463-472. Print.Paul M. Willenberg. The Garden of Jorge Luis Borges. Swarthmore University. Web. 31 Oct. 2011.The Eccentric Borges cardinal UCL Analyses. University College London . Web. 21 Oct. 2011.Richard Burgin. Conversations with Jorge Luis Borges. New York Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1969. 26-27. Print..Editor, author, or compiler name (if available). Name of Site. Version number. Name of institution/organization affiliated with the site (sponsor or publisher), date of imaginativeness creation (if available). Medium of publication. Date of access.Lastname, First name. Title of Essay. Title of Collection. Ed. Editors Name(s). Place of Publication Publisher, Year. Page range of entry. Medium of Publication.Whitman, Walt. I Sing the Body Electric. Selected Poems. New York Dover, 1991. 12-19. Print.