Borges y Kafka. La alegría de la influencia

Abstract

In general terms, the concept of forerunner is understood in the sense of someone who comes before another, preceding and announcing her arrival; it is a category of the history, its ascendant works from the past to the future. The critic category that correspond to it is the category of influence.

In 1951, J. L. Borges published a little essay on certain singularities of the work of Kafka that pretended to invert this perspective, rethinking the problem of forerunners in the domain of the history of literature.

Borges strictly oppose his idea to the classic conception of forerunner, as Nietzsche’s insights on history were opposed to the conception of the 19th century German historicism. For Borges, History is not closed – it is not a result, a balance –, but it is played with every event; a text, an author, sometimes just a new reading, constitute or could constitute an event capable of re-determine its relationships. Retroactive effect of actuality over the past, the work stage a set of transformations that take place on the history of literature and that are attributed to its works and authors. In some measure, works and authors, as singularities, do not change, but become part of new series, of a new plan, of a new perspective; it change what make them exceptional, or minor, or simply irrelevant.

Developing this logic, according which each writer creates its forerunners, Borges subvert the historicist conception of critics, opening us to a perspective where the anxiety of influence is joyfully replaced or enriched by a singular idea of resonance.