MIT UNIWERSALNEJ BIBLIOTEKI I IDEA DEFINITYWNEJ KSIĄŻKI: KONTEKSTY I KONTROWERSJE
MYTH OF UNIVERSAL LIBRARY AND IDEA OF DEFINITIVE BOOK: CONTEXTS AND CONTROVERSIES

Summary/Abstract: The article is aimed at describing two examples of man’s dream about totality. In the introduction,the author considers the concept of a universal library and definitive book. The first part includes ananalysis of various existential conceptions of total library, and first of all, Borgesian, presented in hisfamous text “Library of Babel” as well as his concept of Aleph as a universal point with its access tothe whole reality. Also, the catastrophic idea of a universal library created by Kurt Lasswitz is present-ed. The second part of the article is devoted to the concept of a definitive book. Here the famous textwritten by Borges “The Book of Sand” is considered. Besides the author presents the idea of univer-sality included in the Enlightenment encyclopedias as well as the scientific Biblia project developedby Novalis. In the last part of the article, a comparison is made between the physical library and thevirtual library.

• Details
• Contents