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Borges and tango: imagining Argentina.(Jorge Luis Borges)
- Article from:
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West Virginia University Philological Papers
- Article date:
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September 22, 2006
- Author:
- Aynesworth, Michelle McKay
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Copyright informationCOPYRIGHT 2006 West Virginia University, Department of Foreign Languages. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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To a blind man, all places are, visually speaking, imaginary. However vivid his memories of a city, a street, a house, or a room, what he actually visualizes is no more and no less real than his own imagination. Jorge Luis Borges, who went blind in mid-life, is famous for his fantastic gardens of forking paths and men on pink corners, his fictional funhouse of mirrors and labyrinths and Chinese boxes. What is less well known is the role tango and its forebear the milonga played in his imaginary landscape. Borges glorified the milonga and the classic creole tango, but scorned the later lango-cancion. To understand why is to understand the competing visions of the past that have ...