| Summary: | 博士 === 淡江大學 === 英文學系 === 91 === Jorge Luis Borges, the renowned Argentine writer, is generally regarded by contemporary critics as a magical realist and postmodernist, but not primarily as a “mystic.” This dissertation, however, aims at exploring the mystical side of Borges by comparing the insights or “visions” found within his fiction with such eastern and western mystical traditions as Taoism, Zen, Hinduism, and the mystical Christianity of Jesus, Saint John and Eckart.
The first chapter defines mysticism and the characteristics of mystical literature, and explains the importance of Borges’s mystical visions. The second chapter searches for the origin of Borges’s visions in mystical traditions, and judges that Borges has not only absorbed the essential knowledge of both eastern and western mystical traditions but also invented his own unprecedented style of mystical writing.
The third chapter then goes into Borges’s first vision─the vision of (the) Dream. The author views the world as a dream, a part of the illusory world of maya, but often also shows how dreams can bring us revelations. Furthermore, “dreaming” can be a way of creation, a principle of “genesis.” Chapter four explores this author’s vision of unity. Borges combines two mystical (“all in One”) insights: a tiny thing can contain the whole universe, and all is (in) God. Therefore the identities of his protagonists are often lost or blurred, mixed up with one another in a mystical “communication.” Likewise, many of his stories can contain and interact with other stories within this larger context, creating infinite possible realities.
Chapter five, “The Non-Dualistic Vision,” discusses Borges’s transcendence of (beyond) dualism. His paradoxical language constructs the model of a divine universe, but at the same time implies that one can never attain “reality” in objective knowledge or words. “The Vision of Non-Ego,” chapter six, shows how Borges’s protagonists may go through stages of personal renunciation and detachment to get rid of their thoughts of revenge, to transcend the ego and attain communion with the divine. The seventh chapter discusses Borges’s vision of the universe. In his idea the universe is a synonym of/for divinity, and “each piece of his work contains a mode of the universe.” That is, the labyrinth of his words serves to mirror the universe as an inner, subjective and spiritual reality.
The conclusion affirms the significance of Borge’s visions in terms of both western and mystical literature. Borges, an essential literary figure for this millenium in Italo Calvino’s term, not only inherits the ancient tradition of mystical writing but also opens a new space by bringing to this genre new techniques and fresh insights.
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