The Aleph (short story)
The Aleph (Spanish original title El Aleph ) is a story by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges from the eponymous short story collection from 1949.
Content
As in some stories of Borges hears also the protagonist of " The Aleph " the same name as its author. This fictionalized Borges tells the reader at the beginning of the story of the death Beatriz Elena Viterbo, a revered friend. In order to keep the memory of the beloved awake, the narrator visits once a year home and family of the deceased. So he comes in contact with Viterbo's cousin Carlos Argentino Daneri, a jaded and untalented poet who has made it his task to write an epic poem that describes every place in the world in detail. Daneri commented in interviews with Borges 's own work licentious and asks him even to use his relationships to win another author of the preface of the exorbitant poem. The protagonist tells him his help only for show.
One day the house of Daneri is to be demolished, this Borges revealed: In the basement of his house, a Aleph, where we are dealing with a point in space that contains all points of the world in itself befände. However, the Aleph should be destroyed under any circumstances, otherwise Daneri his poem could not accomplish. Although he remains first in disbelief, as Borges sets out to but to take the supposed Aleph they are buying. In the darkness of the cellar he finally saw the unbelievable: " [ I ] saw the Aleph from all directions at the same time, saw the Aleph the earth and in the earth again, the Aleph and in the Aleph the earth, saw my face and my viscera, saw your face and felt dizzy and wept, for my eyes had beheld this secret and gemutmaßten object, take its name the people in fog, but the no man has ever seen. , the unfathomable universe "
Daneris house is eventually torn down and destroyed the Aleph. In an addendum to the narrator expresses his suspicion that there must have been traded at the Aleph in Daneris basement to a "false " Aleph, since there is evidence of further such points exist in the literature.
Comments
- Like many stories of Borges also treated this text the theme " infinity ": If a point contains the whole universe, he must also give yourself included - and thus be reflected into infinity. For the first Aleph Aleph in the second would, strictly speaking, constitute an element of a third Aleph and so on.
- In set theory is the alef symbol for the cardinal numbers of infinite sets. In particular, the cardinality of the natural numbers is denoted by.
- " The Aleph " contains numerous references to Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. For instance, the name " Daneri " a composition of Dante Alighieri. In addition, the Aleph is located in Borges' story on the 19th stage of the cellar stairs. The Divine Comedy contains in its three parts each in the 19th Canto descriptions of Aleph (eg, an eagle, which consist of all the eagles ).
- The name " Carlos Argentino Daneri " and " Beatriz Elena" involve the first five letters of the alphabet (the Hebrew form, the Aleph - Bet, with the letter " Aleph " begins ). The gentlemen " Zunino " and " Zungri " are, however, responsible for the demolition of the house of Daneri and as of the end of the Aleph.