This Craft of Verse

This Craft of Verse captures the cadences, candor, wit, and erudition of one of the twentieth century’s enduring literary voices. Though his avowed topic is poetry, Borges explores subjects ranging from prose forms―especially the novel―to literary history, translation theory, and philosophical aspects of communication writ large. Borges here draws on a wide range of literary examples―modern and medieval English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Greek, Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, and Chinese. He brings characteristic eloquence and inexhaustible enthusiasm to readings of Plato, the Old Norse kenningar, Byron, Poe, Chesterton, Joyce, and Frost, as well as translations of Homer, the Bible, and the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.

Whether discussing metaphor, the origins of verse, or his own “poetic creed,” Borges gives a performance as entertaining as it is intellectually engaging. A lesson in the love of literature and the making of a unique artistic sensibility, This Craft of Verse is a sustained encounter with one of the writers whose place in the twentieth century will be forever remembered.