Abstract

Though there have been significant comparative studies on Edgar Allen Poe’s influence on Jorge Luis Borges, there has been very little written regarding Nathaniel Hawthorne’s and J. L. Borges’ common interests on the question of romance as a mode of artistic representation. Borges’ analysis of Hawthorne’s short story “Wakefield” reveals much about the commonalities these two authors share in their approach to fiction. It is not only Borges’ acknowledgement of his affinity to Hawthorne’s approach to fiction in this particular essay, but several of Borges’ short stories themselves provide further insight on the common threads these two short story writers share in representing fiction.