"The central fact of my life has been the existence of words and the possibility of weaving those words into poetry..."
(MP3, 30 sec., .25MB)
AUDIO EXCERPTS (in MP3 format)
Here are excerpts from two of the six Norton Lectures that Jorge Luis Borges delivered at Harvard University in the fall of 1967 and spring of 1968. The recordings of these six lectures, only lately discovered in the Harvard University Archives, uniquely capture the cadences, candor, wit, and remarkable erudition of one of the most extraordinary and enduring literary voices of our age. Through a twist of fate that the author of Labyrinths himself would have relished, these lost lectures return to us now--in Borges's own voice.From "The Metaphor" (Lecture 2):
Life as a dream (Chaun Tzu) (1 min. 45 sec., 1.5MB)Sleep as death (Robert Frost) (3 min. 45 sec., 3.5MB)Life as a dream (e e cummings) (3 min. 15 sec., 3MB)
From "A Poet's Creed" (Lecture 6):
"When I began writing...I disguised myself" (2 min., 1MB)"Modern literature...is too self-conscious" (2 min. 30 sec., 1MB)Advice for writers (2 min. 30 sec., 1MB)Read more about This Craft of Verse:
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