TY - JOUR

T1 - Creating Swedenborges: Swedenborg’s Influence on Borges’ Style and Views

AU - Ковалев, Борис Вадимович

PY - 2026/6

Y1 - 2026/6

N2 - The article analyzes the influence of the Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg on the prose and poetry of the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. The main material is Borges’ essays on Swedenborg, dictated in the 1970s, as well as Borges’s late poetry. The purpose of the article is to identify areas of Swedenborg’s influence in Borges’s work. The analysis is carried out in three aspects: 1) what ideas of Swedenborg influenced Borges, 2) what elements of Swedenborg’s poetics Borges uses in his work and 3) what image of Swedenborg does Borges construct. As a result of the analysis of Borges’ lectures, essays and poems about the Swedish mystic, the author identifies four points of intersection. Firstly, Swedenborg’s stylistic and intellectual clarity is important to Borges, he constantly emphasizes this fact in various essays. In addition, Borges uses this stylistic feature writing his own texts. Secondly, Borges, following Swedenborg, looks at the world in a hermeneutic way. According to him, something we call reality is a kind of code that we must decipher. This principle is especially clearly manifested in Borges’s later poetry collections “The Iron Coin” (“La moneda de hierro”, 1976) and “The Limit” (“Cifra”, 1981). Thirdly, Swedenborg often repeats himself in his works, which Borges notes and also uses in his texts. Borges’s repetitions (conceptual and linguistic) are analyzed using poems on northern themes. Fourthly, Borges believes that Swedenborg’s fate is a reflection of Scandinavian culture. The great mystic did not have the influence on the world that, in his opinion, he should have, as many Scandinavians. This Borges’ remark can be considered self-reflexive. Along with this, it is concluded that Borges not only used in his work elements of Swedenborg’s poetics that were important from his point of view, but also used them to recreate the image of Swedenborg himself. The Swedish mystic is a key author for Borges not only at the level of ideas, but also at the level of literary technique, linguapoetic features of texts.

AB - The article analyzes the influence of the Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg on the prose and poetry of the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. The main material is Borges’ essays on Swedenborg, dictated in the 1970s, as well as Borges’s late poetry. The purpose of the article is to identify areas of Swedenborg’s influence in Borges’s work. The analysis is carried out in three aspects: 1) what ideas of Swedenborg influenced Borges, 2) what elements of Swedenborg’s poetics Borges uses in his work and 3) what image of Swedenborg does Borges construct. As a result of the analysis of Borges’ lectures, essays and poems about the Swedish mystic, the author identifies four points of intersection. Firstly, Swedenborg’s stylistic and intellectual clarity is important to Borges, he constantly emphasizes this fact in various essays. In addition, Borges uses this stylistic feature writing his own texts. Secondly, Borges, following Swedenborg, looks at the world in a hermeneutic way. According to him, something we call reality is a kind of code that we must decipher. This principle is especially clearly manifested in Borges’s later poetry collections “The Iron Coin” (“La moneda de hierro”, 1976) and “The Limit” (“Cifra”, 1981). Thirdly, Swedenborg often repeats himself in his works, which Borges notes and also uses in his texts. Borges’s repetitions (conceptual and linguistic) are analyzed using poems on northern themes. Fourthly, Borges believes that Swedenborg’s fate is a reflection of Scandinavian culture. The great mystic did not have the influence on the world that, in his opinion, he should have, as many Scandinavians. This Borges’ remark can be considered self-reflexive. Along with this, it is concluded that Borges not only used in his work elements of Swedenborg’s poetics that were important from his point of view, but also used them to recreate the image of Swedenborg himself. The Swedish mystic is a key author for Borges not only at the level of ideas, but also at the level of literary technique, linguapoetic features of texts.

UR - https://scandphil.spbu.ru/ru/том-24-выпуск-1/

UR - https://elibrary.ru/tazchq

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/187f1b97-1e5e-3d05-b00b-e45bbeaa03f5/

U2 - 10.21638/spbu21.2026.105

DO - 10.21638/spbu21.2026.105

M3 - Article

VL - 24

SP - 68

EP - 85

JO - СКАНДИНАВСКАЯ ФИЛОЛОГИЯ

JF - СКАНДИНАВСКАЯ ФИЛОЛОГИЯ

SN - 0202-2397

IS - 1

ER -