Other Inquisitions 1937-1952  

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Otras inquisiciones 1937-1952 (1952) is a collection of essays and literary criticism by Jorge Luis Borges. Its English title is Other Inquisitions 1937-1952 and was published in 1964.

It includes essays on Blaise Pascal, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Francisco de Quevedo, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Oscar Wilde and Franz Kafka. The essays are oftentimes philosophical (lots of attention given to the problem of universals), largely non-fiction with an occasional sprinkling of fictitious asides.

Contents

Contents of the first edition:

• La muralla y los libros, The Wall and the Books, on Qin Shi Huang
• La esfera de Pascal, Pascal’s Sphere
• La flor de Coleridge, The Flower of Coleridge
• El sueño de Coleridge, The Dream of Coleridge, on dreaming Kubla Khan, mentions "A Chapter on Dreams" by Robert Louis Stevenson, mentions "Nominalist and Realist " by Emerson
• El tiempo y J. W. Dunne, Time and J. W. Dunne, on J. W. Dunne, mentions Gustav Spiller
• La Creación y P. H. Gosse, The Creation and P. H. Gosse, on P. H. Gosse
• Las alarmas del doctor Américo Castro, Dr. Americo Castro Is Alarmed, on Américo Castro
• Nuestro pobre individualismo, Our Poor Individualism
• Quevedo, Quevedo
• Magias parciales del Quijote, Partial Enchantments of the Quixote
• Nathaniel Hawthorne, Nathaniel Hawthorne, on Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • Mentions Wakefield, Earth's Holocaust
  • "Man knows that there are in the soul tints more bewildering, more numberless, and more nameless than the colours of an autumn forest; . . . Yet he seriously believes that these things can every one of them, in all their tones and semi-tones, in all their blends and unions, be accurately represented by an arbitrary system of grunts and squeals. He believes that an ordinary civilized stockbroker can really produce out of his own inside noises which denote all the mysteries of memory and all the agonies of desire." --G. K. Chesterton in an essay on George Frederic Watts[1]
• Valéry como símbolo, Valery as a Symbol, on Paul Valéry and Walt Whitman, mentions the Third man argument
• El enigma de Edward Fitzgerald, The Enigma of Edward FitzGerald
• Sobre Oscar Wilde, About Oscar Wilde
• Sobre Chesterton, on G. K. Chesterton
• El primer Wells, The First Wells, comparing H. G. Wells to Jules Verne
• El "Biathanatos", The Biathanatos, mentions Philipp Batz
• Pascal, Pascal
• El idioma analítico de John Wilkins, The Analytical Language of John Wilkins
• Kafka y sus precursores, Kafka and His Precursors
• Del culto de los libros, On the Cult of Books, on writing
• El ruiseñor de Keats, The Nightingale of Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale", referencing The World as Will and Representation:

"Let us ask ourselves sincerely whether the swallow of this summer is a different one than the swallow of the first summer, and whether the miracle of bringing something forth from nothingness has really occurred millions of times between the two, to be mocked an equal number of times by absolute annihilation. Whoever hears me say that this cat playing here now is the same one that frolicked and romped in this place three hundred years ago may think of me what he will, but it is a stranger madness to imagine that he is fundamentally different."

• El espejo de los enigmas, The Mirror of the Enigmas, on Léon Bloy and Paul's dictum "videmus nunc ..." from 1 Corinthians 13
• Dos libros, Two Books, on H. G. Wells' Guide to the New World (1941) and ...
• Anotación al 23 de agosto de 1944, A Comment on August 23, 1944, on the liberation of Paris
• Sobre el "Vathek" de William Beckford, About William Beckford’s Vathek
• Sobre "The Purple Land", About The Purple Land, The Purple Land
• De alguien a nadie, From Someone to Nobody, on the Elohim
• Formas de una leyenda, Forms of a Legend, on Buddha and buddhism
• De las alegorías a las novelas, From Allegories to Novels, on allegories and nominalism
• Nota sobre (hacia) Bernard Shaw, For Bernard Shaw, G. B. Shaw, mentions Kurd Lasswitz, mentions Johannes Scotus Erigena's Nihil
• Historia de los ecos de un nombre, on I Am That I Am
• El pudor de la historia, The Modesty of History, mentions the Battle of Valmy
• Nueva refutación del tiempo, New Refutation of Time, mentions the Milinda Panha, Daniel von Czepko
• Sobre los clásicos, on classic literature
• Epílogo, Epilogue

English language table of contents

• Introduction
• The Wall and the Books
• Pascal's Sphere
• The Flower of Coleridge
• The Dream of Coleridge
• Time and J. W. Dunne
• The Creation and P. H. Gosse
• Dr. Américo Castro is Alarmed
• A Note on Carriego
• Our Poor Individualism
• Quevedo
• Partial Enchantments of the Quixote
• Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Note on Walt Whitman
• Valéry as a Symbol
• The Enigma of Edward FitzGerald
• About Oscar Wilde
• On Chesterton
• The First Wells
• The Biathanatos
• Pascal
• The Meeting in a Dream
• The Analytical Language of John Wilkins
• Kafka and his Precursors
• Avatars of the Tortoise
• On the Cult of Books
• The Nightingale of Keats
• The Mirror of the Enigmas
• Two Books
• A Comment on August 23, 1944
• About William Beckford's Vathek
• About The Purple Land
• From Someone to Nobody
• Forms of a Legend
• From Allegories to Novels
• The Innocence of Layamon
• For Bernard Shaw
• The Modesty of History
• New Refutation of Time
• Epilogue
• Index

See also

• Jorge Luis Borges bibliography
• Books about books