Monday, December 24, 2007

Shakespeare's Memory


Jorge Luis Borges wrote a story called "Shakespeare's Memory," which I read today and fell in love with a little bit. I am not a huge fan of Borges's, despite everyone's telling me I should be.
I like him well enough, but I have never been drawn in the way I was today reading his fictions at Pegasus Downtown today.

I like the way the character starts out as someone who can't wait to know everything "Shakespearean" and then ends up understanding that knowing all of Shakespeare's experiences is useless. Shakespeare's memory is superfluous and mundane because it does not elucidate the plays or sonnets. His use of language is independent of his life experience. The product is what we love, not the man. Dissecting the man yields almost nothing.

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