This Craft of Verse

by Jorge Luis Borges

Book Overview

Through a twist of fate that the author of Labyrinths himself would have relished, these lost lectures given in English at Harvard in 1967-1968 by Jorge Luis Borges return to us now, a recovered tale of a life-long love affair with literature and the English language. Transcribed from tapes only recently discovered, This Craft of Verse captures the cadences, candor, wit, and remarkable erudition of one of the most extraordinary and...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674008200
• ISBN13: 9780674008205
• Release Date: March 2002
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.4" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

The supreme lover of literature

Borges writes in this work, " I think of myself as essentially being a reader. As you are aware, I have ventured into writing;but I think that what I have read is far more important than what I have written. For one reads what one likes- yet one writes not one would like to write, but what one is able to write." pp.98 This is not to contradict Borges but it seems to me that his writing is what it is essentially because he is such a reader. And as others have often remarked the most remarkable reader .For he reads from so many different linguistic and literary traditions- and he reads with his own imagination, in effect rewriting and combining all he reads into what he enables us to read- his writing. In all this one feels that Borges so loves literature that he is making it live more by writing to us about what he reads. He is the writer perhaps more than any other for whom books are the first and primary experience. They are the world before the world is the world. Borges reads and rereads them and presents his rereadings to us. They often amaze us with their startling perceptions and beauty. This work is ostensibly about the craft of verse but is really Borges talking about various aspects of his reading, and his writing. And he talks with such wisdom and insight, such original poetry that it is impossible not to take pleasure in this work. Borges writes of the music of poetry and of the meaning of metaphor and how real literature like Louis Armstrong's 'jazz' must be sensed and felt as its first definition. For people who love poetry and people who love books there is no other writer who more strengthens their faith in what they are doing, than this very great writer and reader, this supreme lover of literature.

The joy of living in literature

I am not sure whether we learn much about the CRAFT of verse from these lectures. But one thing that we do learn from Borges is what a pleasure it is to be able to find beauty in poetry (and prose). Borges was an amazing man - he was almost seventy when he delivered these six lectures, and he did it without the help of notes since his poor eyesight made it impossible for him to read.For Borges, poetry is essentially undefinable. It flows like Heraklit's river - the meaning of words shifts with time, and readers' appreciation changes over the years. Poetry as he understands it is a riddle because it is beyond rational understanding; it is 'true' in a higher (magical) sense. And what is true in a higher sense remains unfathomable, a riddle: "we KNOW what poetry is. We know it so well that we cannot define it in other words, even as we cannot define the taste of coffee, the color red or yellow, or the meaning of anger, of love, of hatred, of the sunrise, of the sunset, or of our love for our country. These things are so deep in us that they can be expressed only by those common symbols that we share. So why should we need other words [to define what poetry is]?"(18)Metaphors, according to Borges, are the core of poetry, closer to the magic source of words than any other artistic means of expression. Metaphors are so powerful because for him "anything suggested is far more effective than anything laid down. Perhaps the human mind has a tendency to deny a statement. Remember what Emerson said: arguments convince nobody. They convince nobody because they are presented as arguments."(31)My favorite lecture is the fourth, 'Word-Music and Translation.' It is a real gem. I will not quote Borges on how word-music can be rendered in translation; just a short quote to illustrate how magnificently language can be translated by an inspired translator of genius. When Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century translated 'ars longa, vita brevis,' (art is long, life is short) he chose a stunning interpretation with 'the lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.' Borges comments that here we get "not only the statement but also the very music of wistfulness. We can see that the poet is not merely thinking of the arduous art and of the brevity of life; he is also feeling it. This is given by the apparently invisible, inaudible keyword - the word 'so.' 'The lyf SO short, the craft SO long to lerne.'"(62) One small word, and it makes all the difference. And since I prefer translations true to the spirit over translations true to the letter, I was pleased to learn from Borges that all through the Middle Ages, people thought of translation not in terms of a literal rendering but in terms of something being re-created.I do believe that these lectures speak of the wisdom of Borges; not in spite of, but because of the contradictions in the text. Here we meet a man in full; a man who stresses the irrational in poetry and the immediacy of experiencing it, yet proves by his own ex

A must for students of Borges

It would be foolish not to consider all readers of Borges to be students of Borges. Thus, those fortunate enough to find this book can't help but to glean yet more from the labyrinthine mind of one of the century's great thinkers. These five lectures find Borges in his usual vein: the self-effacing, charming, owlish raconteur. His lectures never betray the rigid pedantry of academia, but rather a great, informal tour through literature, philosophy, religion, semiotics, poetics, intertextuality. A former student of Dr. Mihailescu, I was given an advance copy of the book in the summer. Unsurprisingly, I found his elegant, trenchant edit does great service to a fine work. A must.

Magisterial Magician: Borges

An otherworldly snapshot of Jorge Luis Borges, head tilted upward from the lectern with his mouth caught in motion, graces the cover of the slim volume, "This Craft of Verse" (Charles Eliot Norton Lectures). Once in hand, this book is difficult to ignore. Aside from his generous citations of poets, from Homer to Virgil to Coleridge to Keats to Whitman, Borges delivers his received wisdom, distilled from his years of writing. Any one of several passages taken from these five lectures, which have been skillfully edited by Professor Calin-Andrei Mihailescu, is well worth the price of admission. An example: "What does being a writer mean to me? It means simply being true to my imagination" (113).Borges dissembles as he describes the poetic process. He cleverly tells the audience that perhaps they know more than he does about this subject. Yet his apparent humility before the genius of Homer seems authentic. Further, he proffers lines from Frost and Byron to illustrate the power of metaphor: sleep and night--are they "words" or do they connect to one of the twelve patterns in our collective imagination? For Borges, "Words are symbols for shared memories" (137).When Borges says (after Whistler) that "Art happens every time we read a poem," (6) he means to tell us that it is okay to live with the mystery, that we don't need to "tinker" with our poetry to make it "right." What we must do is to be faithful to the dream from which the words came. The magic is in the words; thus "the first reading of a poem is a true one" (6). Such good advice from the master abounds--one can hear him speak through the text. (A CD is forthcoming.)Highly recommended to struggling writers and readers of poetry! This book would be excellent for use in a poetry workshop as an antidote to poison of critical choruses. One does not have to be a disciple of Borges to appreciate these lost but now found lectures.

Apparently effortless magic

I had the good fortune of hearing Borges lecture once in 1976, several years after these Harvard lectures. The sense of being in the presence of a literary alchemist during his lecture happily is re-created through this little book. Borges' self-effacing wit and mastery of words,language, and literature are inspiring to both readers and writers who might like to rediscover the magic of the written.