| Popis: |
The first part of this chapter, consisting of Sections 1 and 2, aims at explaining the apparent scarce presence of Spanish Flu in modernist literature in general and in Borges' literary work in particular. The reason seems to be threefold: the degrading demise associated with illness in comparison to the glorifying destiny attributed to casualties from war, the different metaphorization processes undergone by distinct pandemics and epidemics, and the fact that this 1918 pandemic coincided in time with World War I and artists were trying to avoid evocating more suffering. The second part of the chapter, Sections 3 and 4, focuses on how the threat of Black Death and later Spanish Flu, which confined Borges at home, together with his frail health condition, made him prone to immersing in literature and dreams to escape from reality and experience adventures as real for him as those in the outside world. |
