In Praise of Darkness

“In Praise of Darkness” contains 46 lines and no stanza breaks. Borges’s free verse poem is primarily about Aging and Blindness. The poet is the speaker of the poem, as Borges draws upon his personal experience with going blind in his fifties, playing on tropes of the blind poet or bard whose work reflects the wisdom acquired after the loss of sight.

The first line uses a parenthetical to note that “Old age” (Line 1) is named by “others” (Line 1). Borges uses the parentheses to offer an aside—that he isn’t in charge of assigning names. The following line is his observation, which is set up as a contrast to the general consensus: He asserts that one can experience joy later in life.

Line 3 uses animal imagery to convey how the body changes as it ages. In the phrase “The animal has died or almost died” (Line 3), the “animal” represents the body, specifically the young body, which eventually fails. The repetition of “died” is a memento mori, or reminder that death is near and comes for us all. In Line 4, the speaker separates the intellect and spirit from the dying “animal”: While embodied experience comes to an end, “The man and his spirit remain” (Line 4).