Comparative Essay Education Essay Research Coursework (Essay Sample)

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Comparative Essay
There are startling similarities between the work of Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges, the great Argentine. To begin with, both authors "wrote in a simple, concise, unmannered, yet rigorously scrupulous style," as John Barth deftly summarizes, (Barth, 2) or, as Mclaughlin put it, "the brevity that embraces infinity" (McLaughlin, 108) "The laconic short take was favored, and even Calvino 's longer works are" modular and combinatory, formed from smaller , faster units "(Barth, 2). "In the case of Calvino, literary / philosophical history and" the contamination of reality by dream "in the case of Borges, they were mainly disinclined to social / psychological realism, preferring" myth and fable and science "(Barth, 2).
"Both authors were bent towards the satirical elevation of traditional narrative genres, as well as the" ironic reproduction of stock pictures "in conjunction with traditionally postmodern impulses (Barth, 2-3)." Finally, Barth describes how both of these brilliant writers succeeded in incorporating the ideals he calls "Algebra" and "Fire" in their literature, relating to formal creativity and excitement. Calvino's Unseen Cities and Borges' The Library of Babel are two works that exemplify many of these features. These two works offer an appropriate forum to explore some of the most impressive themes and formal features associated with these esteemed writers.