SOURCE: “Strategies of Self-Conscious Representation in the Early Essays of Jorge Luis Borges,” in The International Fiction Review, Vol. 25, Nos. 1-2, 1998, pp. 29-35.

In the following essay, Stojkov discusses Borges's early essays and his “formalist” theory of literature.

Jorge Luis Borges's international fame as a short story writer has always obscured recognition that he was one of the most productive poets and essayists of Spanish America. His career as an essayist began in 1925 with the publication of Inquisitions and spanned some thirty-five years without interruption until the publication of Dreamtigers in 1960. Borges continued to write poetry until his death in 1986. In comparison, the most famous of his short stories were written in a fifteen-year period from the mid-thirties to the early fifties. These disparities notwithstanding, there is more than just a tenuous relationship among Borges's three literary vocations. This study is concerned principally with establishing a number of...