Borges and the Multiverse: Some Further Thoughts

Various critics have claimed that elements of Borges story El jardín de los senderos que se bifurcan (1941) uncannily foreshadow contemporary cosmological theories of the mulitverse, and in particular the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. This essay locates the source of Borges idea in the work of the English science-fiction writer Olaf Stapledon and, by linking this unacknowledged and previously unexplored intertext with other, more explicit literary allusions in the story (especially to the Chinese novel The Dream of the Red Chamber, but also to Goethe), goes on to explore the ethical as well as aesthetic reasons behind Borges electing to write in apparently fantastic fashion in two stories set during times of war (principally El jardín but also Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius). © 2012 Bulletin of Spanish Studies.