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 Open access under:
CC BY 4.0

A contribution to: Rewriting(s)

Edited by Lucy Russell and Eleanor Dobson

MHRA Working Papers in the Humanities 11

Modern Humanities Research Association

open

Abstract.  This paper considers the presence of W. B. Yeats in the work of Jorge Luis Borges. It focuses particularly on Borges’s use of Yeats’s poetry as epigraphs to two of his short stories, ‘Tema del traidor y del héroe’ (‘Theme of the Traitor and the Hero’) and ‘Biografía de Tadeo Isidoro Cruz (1829–1874)’ (‘A Biography of Tadeo Isidoro Cruz (1829–1874)’). An epigraph presents a unique way of one writer making reference to another, particularly within the broader context of Borges’s propensity to saturate his work with allusions and references to other writers. A consideration of these epigraphs as rewritings of Yeats by Borges is supported by paratextual theory, and further explores ideas of recontextualisation, appropriation, and attributing authorship. Finally, this paper also discusses Borges’s references to Yeats in the context of eternal return, examining the ways in which Borges employs a selective principle in his choice of Yeats.

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