Keat’s nightingale as a choice and pretext. Textual sublayers of T. S- Eliot, Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo and Julio Cortázar in Jorge Luis Borges’s work

Abstract

In this paper, we make an intertextual analysis from Jorge Luis Borges’s references on some lines from Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats, where Schopenhauer is quoted. From the 1960’s Borges gave the English poet more relevance. In this analysis, we’ll show the following textual sublayers: In “Historia de la eternidad” (1936) y “El ruiseñor de Keats” (1951), T. S. Eliot’s “Tradition and the Individual Talent” and Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo’s work, whose work is reflected in Schopenhauer’s thoughts in “Kafka y sus precursores” (1951). In this way, we’ll find a common origen in both texts from 1951 in relation to the writer. We’ll also complete our analysis with Julio Cortázar’s work on Keats, which is considered to be a major advance in the Hispanic studies. In this case, we’ll study some proposals and bibliographic references that Borges could have used.