Kafka and His Precursors
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"The early Kafka of Betrachtung is less a precursor of the Kafka of somber myths and atrocious institutions than is Browning or Lord Dunsany."--"Kafka and His Precursors" (1952) by Jorge Luis Borges |
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"Kafka y sus precursores" (”Kafka and His Precursors”) is an essay on Franz Kafka by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges collected in Other Inquisitions 1937-1952.
Borges lists six precursors to Kafka: Zeno's paradoxes of motion, Han Yu's reflections on the unicorn, Søren Kierkegaard's North Pole and counterfeiter parables, Robert Browning's poem "Fears and Scruples", Léon Bloy's story "The Captives of Longjumeau" and Lord Dunsany's "Carcassonne".
When Borges states that "the early Kafka of "Betrachtung is less a precursor of the Kafka of somber myths and atrocious institutions than is Browning or Lord Dunsany," he seems to imply that some writers are more Kafkaesque than Kafka.
The philosophical term "Borgesian conundrum" is named after Borges in connection with this essay.
See also
- Intertextuality
- Anthologie raisonnée de la littérature chinoise by Georges Margouliès
- A Short Life of Kierkegaard by Walter Lowrie