Blog entry 24:
For my masters study I have been researching The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges, with a view to creating at minimum 15 visual responses to the short story. As established in a number of prior blog entries (blog entries 5,17, 19 & 20), I am interested in religious art. In blog entry 19 I outlined that I might like to look at illustrating religious poems or stories, so I have decided to look at The Tower of Babel, a story in the book of Genesis in the Holy Bible. The name Babel is used in both stories, does this link them in any way? I intend to find out.
To read The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges please follow the link below:
http://www.thecriticalpoint.net/index_files/libraryofbabel.pdf
(Borges, 1944)
The basic storyline for The Tower of Babel (Holy Bible - Genesis):
The people of Babylonia, in the city of Babylon are ordered by the king to build a tower, that would reach into the heavens, so that the people could go to haven without having to obey God's commandments. God was angered by this receipt and collapsed the tower, and so that no tower was built again, all those involved or witnessed this event had their tongues changed and they all spoke different languages so that they could not communicate properly with one another.
The only people who escaped from this punishment were the Jadeite people who had been told to leave for the promised land as a result of a prophetic vision.
The tower of Bable by its name and literal form was seen as the gateway to Heaven. Many Christian fundamentalists use this story to explain why there are different languages and dialects.
(Shepherd, 2014)
(Information from a man brought up in a mormon household)
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| The Tower of Babel by Marten van Valckenbroch the Elder, Painting (1595) 755 x 1050mm |
The glaringly obvious similarity in both stories is the lack of peoples understanding: The Library people struggle to understand the text in the books and The Tower people struggle to understand due to language barriers. This might be something to consider when depicting areas of The Library of Babel.
Another point of interest is the word Bable meaning gateway to heaven - did Borges consider this when writing The Library of Babel? Is the Library not only a metaphor for the universe but a metaphor for Heaven?
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