Virgil’s Keepsakes: Memory and Oblivion Poetic Form

Abstract

The theme of memory is especially active in the books of poetry Borges published over the last twenty-five years of his life, but it is a motif that lasted a lifetime. Someone remembers or someone is remembered, and in that improbable coincidence lies the justification for poetry. Thus, writing does not seek permanence or posterity but rather to approach that point where words touch the essential elements of an existence. In the course of oblivion, there are words or verses that are forgotten and repeated, but there the thread of memory of the poet Virgil appears and disappears, passes from inner experience to a verse, or, through a verse, is returned to the imminence of an aesthetic revelation. This chapter sheds light on that long relationship with a classic poet who, for Borges, unites some of literature’s most vital possibilities.