El museo y la enciclopedia: Lecturas cruzadas de Borges y Barnes

Abstract

Taking in consideration the intertextual and biographical influence of the works of Jorge Luis Borges on the works of Julian Barnes, this article seeks to focus on certain borgian traces that speak of the status of literature in the present time. Starting with the image of the “museum and the encyclopedia” we can read Borges from a barnesian point of view and viceversa, while insisting in the relativity of any kind of order and classification. We shall start with the essential distrust that both authors show towards language. No one can deny that in the literary and critic landscape of our time Borges is a difficult character to overcome or ignore which we will use as a reading and writing mechanism.