<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>The Romantic poet Novalis once rhetorically asked: “Where are we really going?” “Always home.” For a Shakespearean scholar like Borges’ Sörgel in “Shakespeare’s Memory”, the path towards “home” turns out to be the exploration of a most unusual gift, the very memory of the great Elizabethan. The process is similar although not identical in scope to Hamlet’s attempt to realign time through keeping alive the memory of his murdered father. My aim in this paper is to explore the process of preserving memory and its relation to identity, mourning and dread in “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark” and Borges’ “Shakespeare’s Memory”. The theoretical framework is defined by the concept of “eternal return”, as examined by Nietzsche and Mircea Eliade.</p></abstract>

The Romantic poet Novalis once rhetorically asked: “Where are we really going?” “Always home.” For a Shakespearean scholar like Borges’ Sörgel in “Shakespeare’s Memory”, the path towards “home” turns out to be the exploration of a most unusual gift, the very memory of the great Elizabethan. The process is similar although not identical in scope to Hamlet’s attempt to realign time through keeping alive the memory of his murdered father. My aim in this paper is to explore the process of preserving memory and its relation to identity, mourning and dread in “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark” and Borges’ “Shakespeare’s Memory”. The theoretical framework is defined by the concept of “eternal return”, as examined by Nietzsche and Mircea Eliade.

The Unbearable Lightness of Memory: From <italic>Hamlet, Prince of Denmark</italic> to Jorge Luis Borges’ Shakespeare’s Memory

Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey, 26 Agustos Yerlesimi, Kayisdagi Cad. 34755, Atasehir/Istanbul, Turkey

Gender Studies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

The Unbearable Lightness of Memory: From  to Jorge Luis Borges’ Shakespeare’s Memory

The Romantic poet Novalis once rhetorically asked: “Where are we really going?” “Always home.” For a Shakespearean scholar like Borges’ Sörgel in...

The Unbearable Lightness of Memory: From Hamlet, Prince of Denmark to Jorge Luis Borges’ Shakespeare’s Memory

Published Online: Feb 29, 2016

Page range: 12 - 32

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/genst-2016-0002

Keywords
curse, Eliade, eternal return, Nietzsche, memory

© 2015 Adriana Raducanu, published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

The Unbearable Lightness of Memory: From Hamlet, Prince of Denmark to Jorge Luis Borges’ Shakespeare’s Memory

Published Online: Feb 29, 2016

Page range: 12 - 32

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/genst-2016-0002

Keywordscurse, Eliade, eternal return, Nietzsche, memory

© 2015 Adriana Raducanu, published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
curse, Eliade, eternal return, Nietzsche, memory