Abstract
Jorge Luis Borges and Ethnology: James George Frazer Borges’ interest in ethnology is particularly apparent in his repeated references to the work of James G. Frazer.
Specially, J. L.
Borges review essay The Fear of the Dead in Primitive Religion (which precedes in Czech translation this article) anticipated later interpretations and criticism of J. G.
Frazer and his methodological inconsistency. I is to stress that J.
L. Borges work in general is marked by overt sensitivity to cultural differences.
The most ethnological of J. L.
Borges essays and short stories in this sense is “Brodies Report“, a vivid sketch of ”primitive“ society. The ”Report“ is the major subject of this article.
The article asks what joins J. L.
Borges with J. G.
Frazer. And the author concludes that, although of quite different intellectual backgrounds and traditions, our authors should be perhaps situated within the lineage of the miscellaneous, traces by such personalities as Pliny, R.
Burton, G. Flaubert and C.
G. Jung.