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This Craft of Verse (Charles Eliot Norton Lectures)

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I am not sure whether we learn much about the CRAFT of verse from these lectures. But one thing that we do learn from Borges is what a pleasure it is to be able to find beauty in poetry (and prose). Borges was an amazing man - he was almost seventy when he delivered these six lectures, and he did it without the help of notes since his poor eyesight made it impossible for him to read.

For Borges, poetry is essentially undefinable. It flows like Heraklit's river - the meaning of words shifts with time, and readers' appreciation changes over the years. Poetry as he understands it is a riddle because it is beyond rational understanding; it is 'true' in a higher (magical) sense. And what is true in a higher sense remains unfathomable, a riddle: "we KNOW what poetry is. We know it so well that we cannot define it in other words, even as we cannot define the taste of coffee, the color red or yellow, or the meaning of anger, of love, of hatred, of the sunrise, of the sunset, or of our love for our country. These things are so deep in us that they can be expressed only by those common symbols that we share. So why should we need other words [to define what poetry is]?"(18)

Metaphors, according to Borges, are the core of poetry, closer to the magic source of words than any other artistic means of expression. Metaphors are so powerful because for him "anything suggested is far more effective than anything laid down. Perhaps the human mind has a tendency to deny a statement. Remember what Emerson said: arguments convince nobody. They convince nobody because they are presented as arguments."(31)

My favorite lecture is the fourth, 'Word-Music and Translation.' It is a real gem. I will not quote Borges on how word-music can be rendered in translation; just a short quote to illustrate how magnificently language can be translated by an inspired translator of genius. When Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century translated 'ars longa, vita brevis,' (art is long, life is short) he chose a stunning interpretation with 'the lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.' Borges comments that here we get "not only the statement but also the very music of wistfulness. We can see that the poet is not merely thinking of the arduous art and of the brevity of life; he is also feeling it. This is given by the apparently invisible, inaudible keyword - the word 'so.' 'The lyf SO short, the craft SO long to lerne.'"(62) One small word, and it makes all the difference.

And since I prefer translations true to the spirit over translations true to the letter, I was pleased to learn from Borges that all through the Middle Ages, people thought of translation not in terms of a literal rendering but in terms of something being re-created.

I do believe that these lectures speak of the wisdom of Borges; not in spite of, but because of the contradictions in the text. Here we meet a man in full; a man who stresses the irrational in poetry and the immediacy of experiencing it, yet proves by his own example how the experience of poetry grows with the plain, rational knowledge about poetry that we gather over the years. Borges is also a man who lives in literature. He finds new beauty in poetry because he continues to change every day. And this is perhaps the most inspiring message of his lectures: people who continue to enjoy changing with the new things they learn 'turn not older with years, but newer every day,' as Emily Dickinson phrased it.

An otherworldly snapshot of Jorge Luis Borges, head tilted upward from the lectern with his mouth caught in motion, graces the cover of the slim volume, "This Craft of Verse" (Charles Eliot Norton Lectures). Once in hand, this book is difficult to ignore. Aside from his generous citations of poets, from Homer to Virgil to Coleridge to Keats to Whitman, Borges delivers his received wisdom, distilled from his years of writing. Any one of several passages taken from these five lectures, which have been skillfully edited by Professor Calin-Andrei Mihailescu, is well worth the price of admission. An example: "What does being a writer mean to me? It means simply being true to my imagination" (113).

Borges dissembles as he describes the poetic process. He cleverly tells the audience that perhaps they know more than he does about this subject. Yet his apparent humility before the genius of Homer seems authentic. Further, he proffers lines from Frost and Byron to illustrate the power of metaphor: sleep and night--are they "words" or do they connect to one of the twelve patterns in our collective imagination? For Borges, "Words are symbols for shared memories" (137).

When Borges says (after Whistler) that "Art happens every time we read a poem," (6) he means to tell us that it is okay to live with the mystery, that we don't need to "tinker" with our poetry to make it "right." What we must do is to be faithful to the dream from which the words came. The magic is in the words; thus "the first reading of a poem is a true one" (6). Such good advice from the master abounds--one can hear him speak through the text. (A CD is forthcoming.)

Highly recommended to struggling writers and readers of poetry! This book would be excellent for use in a poetry workshop as an antidote to poison of critical choruses. One does not have to be a disciple of Borges to appreciate these lost but now found lectures.

Borges writes in this work, " I think of myself as essentially being a reader. As you are aware, I have ventured into writing;but I think that what I have read is far more important than what I have written. For one reads what one likes- yet one writes not one would like to write, but what one is able to write." pp.98
This is not to contradict Borges but it seems to me that his writing is what it is essentially because he is such a reader. And as others have often remarked the most remarkable reader .For he reads from so many different linguistic and literary traditions- and he reads with his own imagination, in effect rewriting and combining all he reads into what he enables us to read- his writing.
In all this one feels that Borges so loves literature that he is making it live more by writing to us about what he reads. He is the writer perhaps more than any other for whom books are the first and primary experience. They are the world before the world is the world. Borges reads and rereads them and presents his rereadings to us.
They often amaze us with their startling perceptions and beauty.
This work is ostensibly about the craft of verse but is really Borges talking about various aspects of his reading, and his writing. And he talks with such wisdom and insight, such original poetry that it is impossible not to take pleasure in this work.
Borges writes of the music of poetry and of the meaning of metaphor and how real literature like Louis Armstrong's 'jazz' must be sensed and felt as its first definition. For people who love poetry and people who love books there is no other writer who more strengthens their faith in what they are doing, than this very great writer and reader, this supreme lover of literature.

It would be foolish not to consider all readers of Borges to be students of Borges. Thus, those fortunate enough to find this book can't help but to glean yet more from the labyrinthine mind of one of the century's great thinkers. These five lectures find Borges in his usual vein: the self-effacing, charming, owlish raconteur. His lectures never betray the rigid pedantry of academia, but rather a great, informal tour through literature, philosophy, religion, semiotics, poetics, intertextuality. A former student of Dr. Mihailescu, I was given an advance copy of the book in the summer. Unsurprisingly, I found his elegant, trenchant edit does great service to a fine work. A must.

I had the good fortune of hearing Borges lecture once in 1976, several years after these Harvard lectures. The sense of being in the presence of a literary alchemist during his lecture happily is re-created through this little book. Borges' self-effacing wit and mastery of words,language, and literature are inspiring to both readers and writers who might like to rediscover the magic of the written.

Lucid, witty, charming and honest to the degree of a confession. This Craft of Verse is a testimony to Borges' lifelong love of literature and a masterful commentary on the art of reading and the craft of writing. Each chapter showcases Borges' poetic sensibility to transfix the mundane into the magical. The reader gains privileged access into the mind's eye of the Borgesian dreamscape, that rarefied vista of the sublime replete with uncanny insights, twists of perception and mnemonic powers worthy of Homer. A highly recommended work of refined taste and culture.

Ladies and gentleman... Borges is one of my favorite writers, so you can imagine the joy I had when I could finally listen to these lectures.

I tend to find that, when an artist says something great on art, it tends to be more useful than what most specialists have to say.

Borges has many important things to say about art and philosophy, or should I say, on beauty in general. And he says them in the most beautiful way.

"This craft of verse" allows you to experience what Jorge Luis Borges' students felt like listening to him, during the lectures he delivered in Harvard in 1967 and 1968. Truth to be told, this opportunity is open to us only due to sheer luck, as the tapes of these lectures were lost for a long time, and have only recently been discovered.

The lectures included in these cds are "The Riddle of Poetry", "The Metaphor", "The Telling of the Tale", "Word-Music and Translation", "Thought and Poetry" and "A Poet's Creed". When you listen to them, you cannot help but appreciate the immense knowledge that Borges had. It is also easy to realize that he loved his craft, and was thankfully able to share that passion with his students, and -thanks to technology- with us.

According to Jorge Luis Borges, "Words are symbols for shared memories". By listening to Borges' lectures, you create a memory you previously didn't have, and, in a strange but very real way, share something with him. Highly recommended...

Belen Alcat

I don't believe that any one person in the history of letters has lived more fully in books, around books, with books, and through books than has Jorge Luis Borges. Thus I give him the title of Master Borges. It is a title I, myself, do not give him but one that he already bears simply by the person he is, was, and continues to be through his legacy. I'm sure he would modestly disapprove. But Kafka thought himself (at least on some level) a hack, so it would not surprise that one who has inspired me with such a sense of wonder in words, as has Borges, would think that he has not really done anything special at all. And there is the rub. Borges is telling his personal feelings about verse and prose (the same thing according to him) but never onces considers he is giving us the beauty of words merely by remembering them. In his recollections and meditations lie a wisdom that is almost preternatural. I give as example these few quotes:

"What is important, what is all-meaning is the fact that poetry should be living or dead, not that the style should be plain or elaborate."

"There are, of course, verses that are beautiful and meaningless. Yet they still have a meaning - not to the reason but to the imagination."

"Remember that the Gnostics said the only way to be rid of a sin is to commit it, because afterwards you repent it. In regard to literature, they were essentially right. If I have attained the happiness of writing four of five tolerable pages, after writing fifteen intolerable volumes, I have come to that feat not only through many years but also through the method of trial and error."

There are more pearls, many more, and it will take many rereadings to find them all, if such a thing is possible. It makes one desperately wish that they could have had the opportunity to sit and hear the master speak. If (no, when) you read this book, do so slowly. And read as if you were hearing the man face to face. Just as Borges heard Casinos-Assens, Fernandez, and his father speak to him when in search of knowledge and wisdom, I hear, at least I would like to think that I hear, Borges speak, for I have heard him speak from the living breathing pages of this book. Read. Please. See if you can hear the music of his voice.

All the previous reviewers have given this five stars and rightfully so, and they've brought out what is so invigorating about Borges approach to the subject. He was like a little boy jumping from rock to rock, or climbing a tree. His lectures delve into the question of what is the essence of poetry, but in a lively, discursive way. He brings up the questions that interest him and quotes the poetry that has meant a lot to him. They are not ponderous pronouncements. His view is that poetry is the electric element in the ether we sometimes feel, the energy, rather than the words. And this too reminds me of boyhood. He is honest, contradictory, sometimes even silly, deferential, with a hearty appetite for deep questions. It's thrilling really.