Dreamtigers
Dreamtigers
Author: Jorge Luis Borges
Desc: Dreamtigers has been heralded as one of the literary masterpieces of the twentieth century by Mortimer J. Adler editor of Great Books of the Western World. It has been acknowledged by its author as his most personal work. Composed of poems parables and stories sketches and apocryphal quotations Dreamtigers at first glance appears to be a sampleralbeit a dazzling oneof the master's work. Upon closer examination however the reader discovers the book to be a subtly and organically unified self-revelation. Dreamtigers explores the mysterious territory that lies between the dreams of the creative artist and the "real" world. The central vision of the work is that of a recluse in the "enveloping serenity " of a library looking ahead to the time when he will have disappeared but in the timeless world of his books will continue his dialogue with the immortals of the past Homer Don Quixote Shakespeare. Like Homer the maker of these dreams is afflicted with failing sight. Still he dreams of tigers real and imagined and reflects upon of a life that above all has been intensely introspective a life of calm self-possession and absorption in the world of the imagination. At the same time he is keenly aware of that other Borges the public figure about whom he reads with mixed emotions: "It's the other one it's Borges that things happen to."