Deus como personagem na obra de Jorge Luis Borges

Abstract

This research addresses how the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges builds the literary character God in his work. The main work includes, in first place, the short stories: “Pierre Menard - author of Quixote” (1939), “El Aleph” (1945), “Los Teologos” (1947) and “La escritura del dios” (1949) in order to present a silent God, on the side of humanity, who acts more through his power of creation. Later, when the verb becomes flesh, in clear intertextuality with the biblical texts, we visualize a second moment of the character who is now represented by a Son, Jesus Christ, but who can still be any man, including Judas, because everyone is equal. For an explanation of this point of view we consider the short stories “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” (1941), “Tres versiones de Judas” (1944), “Deutsches Requiem” (1946) and “El Evangelio según Marcos” (1970). It is also important to remember that mentions of this character are not always made directly, and may be diluted in stories retold in line with fictional, philosophical and/or theological debates. The methodology was based on reading and selection from Borges' productions that enable a literary reflection on a character who is the personification of language, since this God only exists through the Word. Thus, Borges' writing is the fundamental key to understanding this element, which appears parallel to other aspects, not only biblical, but also historical and cultural, which tend to deterritorialize concepts previously immobilized by religious tradition. To debate the theme of the character in literature, we brought Candido's theory (1976) to understand the changes made by Borges in the literary field, plus Fiorin (2008) and Maingueneau (2009) for understanding of the new Borgean semiotic contract present in the analyzed literary discourse; we also present the researches of Deleuze (2006) to discuss the possible new territories of this reterritorialized God; and when we entered the Jewish universe to analyze the Borges character, it was essential to turn to Sosnowski (1991), Sarlo (2007), Nascimento (2009) and Gadotti (2012), who had already researched Borges in the religious aspect, but addressing others axes other than specifically the divine character.