Borges places the Aleph in Daneri’s cellar partly for comedic effect: Daneri is a pompous fool, a type Borges likely encountered frequently in literary circles.

“The Aleph” is a fictional rendering of a universal metaphor as outlined by Jorge Luis Borges in an essay published in 1952 entitled “La esphera de Pascal” (“Pascal’s Sphere”).

‘‘The Aleph’’ is narrated by a character named Borges, who serves as a fictional representation of the author, thereby enhancing the story's realism. Like the real author, the narrator is ...

“The Aleph” begins with the narrator, Borges, recalling that on the February morning of Beatriz Viterbo’s death, a billboard advertisement in the Plaza Constitucion was being changed. The ...

The Aleph of the title, a bright sphere about an inch in diameter, is a magical microcosm, a point that contains all other points in the cosmos. The Aleph makes all things visible without ...

How does ‘‘The Aleph’’ mirror these concepts, such as the idea of a ‘‘naked singularity’’ or the principles of chaos theory? In 1946, Borges was dismissed from his librarian ...

‘‘The Aleph’’ is conventionally praised as one of Borges’s most important stories. In her 1965 study, Borges the Labyrinth Maker, Ana Maria Barrenechea argues that ‘‘the most ...

In "The Aleph," Jorge Luis Borges incorporates fantastic elements into a realistic setting, thus blurring the lines between reality and fantasy. This is the definition of magical realism , and ...

Complete summary of Jorge Luis Borges' Selected Poems. eNotes plot summaries cover all the significant action of Selected Poems.