"Pierre Menard, Author of the ''Quixote''" (original Spanish title: "Pierre Menard, autor del ''Quijote''") is a short story by

Argentine Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, s ...

writer

Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known bo ...

. It originally appeared in Spanish in the

journal '' Sur'' in May 1939. The Spanish-language original was first published in book form in Borges's 1941 collection ''

El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan "The Garden of Forking Paths" (original Spanish title: "El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan") is a 1941 short story by Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges. It is the title story in the collection ''El jardín de senderos que se bifurc ...

'' (''The Garden of Forking Paths''), which was included in his much-reprinted ''

Ficciones ' (in English: "Fictions") is a collection of short stories by Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges, originally written and published in Spanish between 1941 and 1956. Thirteen stories from ''Ficciones'' were first published by New Dire ...

'' (1944).

Plot summary

"Pierre Menard, Author of the ''Quixote''" is written in the form of a review or literary critical piece about Pierre Menard, a fictional eccentric 20th-century French writer and polymath. It begins with a brief introduction and a listing of Menard's work. Borges' "review" describes Menard's efforts to go beyond a mere "translation" of ''

Don Quixote is a Spanish epic novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615, its full title is ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'' or, in Spanish, (changing in Part 2 to ). A founding work of Wester ...

'' by immersing himself so thoroughly in the work as to be able to actually "re-create" it, line for line, in the original 17th-century Spanish. Thus, Pierre Menard is often used to raise questions and discussion about the nature of

authorship An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

, appropriation, and interpretation.

Analysis

"Pierre Menard, Author of the ''Quixote''" is a form of

literary criticism Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...

, but through the medium of fantasy, irony, and humor. His narrator/reviewer considers Menard's fragmentary ''Quixote'' (which is line-for-line identical to the original) to be much richer in allusion than

Miguel de Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 Old Style and New Style dates, NS) was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-emin ...

' "original" work because Menard's must be considered in light of world events since 1602. Cervantes, the reviewer claims, "indulges in a rather coarse opposition between tales of knighthood and the meager, provincial reality of his country". While Menard writes of the distant past ("the land of Carmen during the century of Lepanto and Lope"), in Cervantes "there are neither bands of Gypsies, conquistadors... nor '' autos de fé''". In "

The Library of Babel "The Library of Babel" ( es, La biblioteca de Babel) is a short story by Argentine author and librarian Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986), conceiving of a universe in the form of a vast library containing all possible 410-page books of a certain ...

", Borges contemplates the opposite effect: ''impoverishment'' of a text through the means of its reproduction. In a pattern analogous to the

infinite monkey theorem The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare. In fact, the monkey would ...

, all texts are reproduced in a vast library only because complete randomness eventually reproduces all possible combinations of letters. Both stories deal with the difficulty of creating meaning or perhaps finding or determining meaning. In the case of Quixote, the meaning depends on reader-response and/or context of the work. In the case of the Library of Babel, meaning is hard to find as any coherent works are rare. By implication the library contains all possible works. However, any work with meaning is random and not the product of human action and therefore drained of meaning. In the case of Quixote the human action of writing and reading the work affect meaning. Borges wrote the story while recovering from a head injury. It was intended as a test to discover whether his creativity had survived the severe

septicaemia Sepsis, formerly known as septicemia (septicaemia in British English) or blood poisoning, is a life-threatening condition that arises when the body's response to infection causes injury to its own tissues and organs. This initial stage is follo ...

that had set in after his head wound became infected. Following its completion, Borges was satisfied that his creativity remained and thus proceeded to write the rest of the stories that later made up the book ''El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan''. As so often in his writings, the story abounds in clever references and subtle jokes. His narrator/reviewer is an arch-Catholic who remarks of the readers of a rival journal that they are "few and

Calvinist Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Ca ...

, if not

Masonic Freemasonry or Masonry refers to Fraternity, fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of Stonemasonry, stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their inte ...

and

circumcised Circumcision is a procedure that removes the foreskin from the human penis. In the most common form of the operation, the foreskin is extended with forceps, then a circumcision device may be placed, after which the foreskin is excised. Topic ...

". According to

Emir Rodríguez Monegal Emir Rodríguez Monegal (28 July 1921 – 14 November 1985), born in Uruguay, was a scholar, literary critic, and editor of Latin American literature. From 1969 to 1985, Rodríguez Monegal was professor of Latin American contemporary literatur ...

and

Alastair Reid Alastair Reid (22 March 1926, in Whithorn – 21 September 2014, in Manhattan) was a Scottish poet and a scholar of South American literature. He was known for his lighthearted style of poems and for his translations of South American poets Jo ...

, Menard is in part "a caricature of

Stéphane Mallarmé Stéphane Mallarmé ( , ; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), pen name of Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of ...

and

Paul Valéry Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules Valéry (; 30 October 1871 – 20 July 1945) was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. In addition to his poetry and fiction (drama and dialogues), his interests included aphorisms on art, history, letters, mus ...

... or

Miguel de Unamuno Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (29 September 1864 – 31 December 1936) was a Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright, philosopher, professor of Greek and Classics, and later rector at the University of Salamanca. His major philosophical essay w ...

and

Enrique Larreta Enrique Rodríguez Larreta (March 4, 1875 – July 6, 1961) was an Argentine writer, academic, diplomat and art collector. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature ten times. Biography Larreta was born in Buenos Aires to Adela Maza an ...

Publishing history

Two English-language translations were published more or less simultaneously in 1962: one by James E. Irby in a diverse collection of Borges works entitled ''Labyrinths''; the other by Anthony Bonner as part of a collaborative translation of the entirety of ''Ficciones'' (1962). The Bonner translation is reprinted in ''Borges, A Reader''.

Source of the name

Borges describes his Pierre Menard as the grandson of one "Louis Menard," not otherwise identified. Borges's biographer

notes that this name belonged to a real person,

Louis Ménard Louis-Nicolas Ménard (19 October 1822 – 9 February 1901) was a French man of letters also known for his early discoveries on collodion. Biography He was born in Paris. His versatile genius occupied itself in turn with chemistry, poetry, paint ...

, a self-described "pagan mystic" who was observed by contemporary

Remy de Gourmont Remy de Gourmont (4 April 1858 – 27 September 1915) was a French symbolist poet, novelist, and influential critic. He was widely read in his era, and an important influence on Blaise Cendrars and Georges Bataille. The spelling ''Rémy'' de Go ...

to have composed a work called '' Prometheus Unbound'' in both French and Ancient Greek. Gourmont describes this in florid language, saying that Ménard's "ambition already seemed to penetrate Greek thought, to reconstitute the lost works of the great tragedies, and he composed a ''Prometheus Unbound'', which, for the convenience of readers, he wrote in French, but it might have been more agreeable to him to write in the language of Aeschylus, as he did at the same time."

Influence

In his foreword to P. G. Wodehouse's ''

Sunset at Blandings ''Sunset at Blandings'' is an unfinished novel by P. G. Wodehouse published in the United Kingdom by Chatto & Windus, London, on 17 November 1977 and in the United States by Simon & Schuster, New York, 19 September 1978.McIlvaine, E., Sherby, L ...

'',

Douglas Adams Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author and screenwriter, best known for ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. Originally a 1978 BBC radio comedy, ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' developed into a " ...

recommended the story: "You should read Jorge Luis Borges's short story 'Pierre Menard, Author of the ''Quixote''. It’s only six pages long, and you'll be wanting to drop me a postcard to thank me for pointing it out to you." The foreword was reprinted in Adams's posthumously published collection of writings, ''

The Salmon of Doubt ''The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time'' is a wikt:posthumous, posthumous collection of previously published and unpublished material by Douglas Adams. It consists largely of essays, interviews, and newspaper/magazine colum ...

''. In

Italo Calvino Italo Calvino (, also , ;. RAI (circa 1970), retrieved 25 October 2012. 15 October 1923 – 19 September 1985) was an Italian writer and journalist. His best known works include the ''Our Ancestors'' trilogy (1952–1959), the '' Cosmicomi ...

's ''

If on a Winter's Night a Traveler ''If on a winter's night a traveler'' ( it, Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore) is a 1979 novel by the Italian writer Italo Calvino. The postmodernist narrative, in the form of a frame story, is about the reader trying to read a book called ...

'' (1979) the character Silas Flannery tries to copy a "famous novel" to gain the energy from that text for his own writing, and finally he feels tempted to copy the entire novel ''

Crime and Punishment ''Crime and Punishment'' ( pre-reform Russian: ; post-reform rus, Преступление и наказание, Prestupléniye i nakazániye, prʲɪstʊˈplʲenʲɪje ɪ nəkɐˈzanʲɪje) is a novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. ...

''. This technique was actually attempted by Hunter S. Thompson, who retyped the entirety of ''

The Great Gatsby ''The Great Gatsby'' is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts First-person narrative, first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with mysterious mil ...

'' when he studied at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, prior to the writing of any of his major works.

John Hodgman John Kellogg Hodgman (born June 3, 1971) is an American author, actor, and humorist. In addition to his published written works, such as '' The Areas of My Expertise'', ''More Information Than You Require'', and '' That Is All'', he is known for ...

claims to have made a "controversial shot-by-shot remake" of "Pierre Menard" in the "page-a-day calendar" portion of his book ''

More Information Than You Require ''More Information Than You Require'' is a 2008 satirical almanac by John Hodgman. It is the follow-up to Hodgman's 2005 book '' The Areas of My Expertise''. It was released October 21, 2008. The full title reads: ''More Information Than You ...

'', on the date 4 December 1998. The joke references not only the recreation nature of the original short story, but also

Gus Van Sant Gus Green Van Sant Jr. (born July 24, 1952) is an American film director, producer, photographer, and musician. He has earned acclaim as both an independent and mainstream filmmaker. His films typically deal with themes of marginalized subcultur ...

shot-for-shot Shot-for-shot (or shot-for-shot adaptation, shot-for-shot remake) is a way to describe a visual work that is transferred almost completely identically from the original work without much interpretation. Production uses In the film industry, most ...

remake of '' Psycho'', which was released on the same date. '' City of Glass'' by

Paul Auster Paul Benjamin Auster (born February 3, 1947) is an American writer and film director. His notable works include ''The New York Trilogy'' (1987), ''Moon Palace'' (1989), ''The Music of Chance'' (1990), ''The Book of Illusions'' (2002), ''The Broo ...

seems to be an homage to

. The character Peter Stillman Snr. is obsessed with the Tower of Babel (as in

) and the character (as opposed to the author) named "Paul Auster" is writing an essay which discusses the "true" authorship of the Quixote. The story is also referenced in the introduction to

Roberto Bolaño Roberto Bolaño Ávalos (; 28 April 1953 – 15 July 2003) was a Chilean novelist, short-story writer, poet and essayist. In 1999, Bolaño won the Rómulo Gallegos Prize for his novel ''Los detectives salvajes'' (''The Savage Detectives' ...

's novel ''

Distant Star ''Distant Star'' ( es, Estrella distante) is a novella by Chilean author Roberto Bolaño, first published in Spanish in 1996. Chris Andrews’s English translation was published by Harvill Press/ New Directions in 2004. The story is based on "The ...

'', and along with "

An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain "An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain" (original Spanish title: "Examen de la obra de Herbert Quain") is a 1941 short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. It was included in the anthology '' Ficciones'', part one (''The Garden of ...

" has a noticeable influence on his other works, particularly ''

Nazi Literature in the Americas ''Nazi Literature in the Americas'' ( es, La literatura nazi en América) is a work of fiction by the Chilean author Roberto Bolaño. It was published in 1996. Chris Andrews’ English translation was published in 2008 by New Directions and was sh ...

''. The story is referenced in the CD notes of

Mostly Other People Do the Killing Mostly Other People Do the Killing is a jazz quartet based in New York City including trumpeter Peter Evans, saxophonist Jon Irabagon, bassist Matthew "Moppa" Elliott, and drummer Kevin Shea. The group formed in 2003 and has released several al ...

's 2014 album ''Blue'', which is an exacting replica of

Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...

' famous 1959 album ''

Kind of Blue ''Kind of Blue'' is a studio album by American jazz trumpeter, composer, and bandleader Miles Davis. It was recorded on March 2 and April 22, 1959, at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City, and released on August 17 of that year by Co ...

''. The translator of the novel ''The Missing Shade of Blue'' (by Jennie Erdal) into Portuguese adopted the pseudonym Pierre Menard. The novel ''

Pale Fire ''Pale Fire'' is a 1962 novel by Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is presented as a 999-line poem titled "Pale Fire", written by the fictional poet John Shade, with a foreword, lengthy commentary and index written by Shade's neighbor and academic col ...

'' by

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bo ...

expands the concept of the 'frame narrative' of Borges' story, expanding this conceit into a novel-length structure in which a commentator appears, at first, to be simply analyzing the work of another character (a 1000 line poem, which the novel actually features) and doing so in good faith, before it becomes increasingly difficult for the reader to separate the truth about the lives of the two characters from the manner in which the commentary begins to dominate and manipulate the meaning of the fictional author's text to tell the commentator's own story. Much as the narrator of Borges' story offers a list of Pierre Menard's fictional publications, the novel ''

Infinite Jest ''Infinite Jest'' is a 1996 novel by American writer David Foster Wallace. Categorized as an encyclopedic novel, ''Infinite Jest'' is featured in ''TIME'' magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005. ...

'' by

David Foster Wallace David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and university professor of English and creative writing. Wallace is widely known for his 1996 novel '' Infinite Jest'', whi ...

contains a patience-testing list of the film credits of one of the characters, expanding the comedic possibilities of the structure of fictional references by offering both titles and sometimes-lengthy descriptions of the highly-improbable (or downright impossible) films. The story's suggestion that the reader's sense of the meaning of any text is contingent on how they attribute the text to its presumed author (since the reader attempts to interpret the text in terms of the author's life, works, beliefs, etc. for better or worse or on to absurdity, as the story ultimately suggests) is a prefiguring of the post-structuralist turn toward the de-centering of the author (that is, the de-centering of the author as ultimate authority or anchor of a text's meaning) as argued most famously by

Roland Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popular ...

in his 1967 essay ''La Mort de l'Auteur'' ("

The Death of the Author "The Death of the Author" (French: ''La mort de l'auteur'') is a 1967 essay by the French literary critic and theorist Roland Barthes (1915–1980). Barthes's essay argues against traditional literary criticism's practice of relying on the inten ...

") and by

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault (, ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and how ...

in "What is an Author?" The story is referenced in the episode "The Balance" on the cartoon program ''

Justice League Unlimited ''Justice League Unlimited'' (''JLU'') is a 2004–2006 American superhero animated television series that was produced by Warner Bros. Animation and aired on Cartoon Network. Featuring a wide array of superheroes from the DC Comics universe, and ...

''. The episode originally aired on 28 May 2005. In the episode, members of the Justice League visit the Library of Tartarus where the fictional Menard's story is said to reside. It is additionally referenced in ''

House of Leaves ''House of Leaves'' is the debut novel by American author Mark Z. Danielewski, published in March 2000 by Pantheon Books. A bestseller, it has been translated into a number of languages, and is followed by a companion piece, '' The Whalestoe Le ...

'', by Mark Z. Danielewski, where Pierre Menard is made out to be a real person and an example of "exquisite variation". In the novel, a footnote by Zampanó references Pierre Menard and his "variation" on the passage beginning "... la verdad, cuya madre es la historia tc. Pierre Menard is credited as the author of a book which was adapted into the screenplay of the 2011 film ''

A Low Life Mythology ''A Low Life Mythology'' is a 2012 film directed by Lior Shamriz and starring Nina Fog and Johannes Hendrik Langer. It was written by the director with some improvisations by the cast and includes guest appearances by artists Hito Steyerl, Wolfga ...

''. The story is also referenced in TV show ''

The Good Place ''The Good Place'' is an American fantasy comedy television series created by Michael Schur. It premiered on NBC on September 19, 2016, and concluded on January 30, 2020, after four seasons and 53 episodes. Although the plot evolves signific ...

'', season 4, episode 13, "Whenever You're Ready", in a list of projects that character Tahani Al Jamil is working on in the afterlife. One of her projects is described as "Write "Tahani Al Jamil's 'Borges' "Pierre Menard, Author of the ''Quixote''" ' ". In the HBO Series '' Los Espookys'', season 2, episode 3, the character Tati decides to write a novel, which consists of transcribing an audiobook of ''

''.

Notes

External links

"Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote"
Complete Spanish text
Commentary on "Pierre Menard, Author of the ''Quixote''"
by

Beatriz Sarlo Beatriz Sarlo (born 1942) is an Argentine literary and cultural critic. She was also founding editor of the cultural journal '' Punto de Vista'' ("Point of View"). She became an Order of Cultural Merit laureate in 2009. Biography Beatriz Sarlo ...

"Towards a Borgean Theory of Constitutional Interpretation"
A legal take on Pierre Menard rewriting the United States Constitution, by Marco Jimenez
"Atrapados en la galería de los espejos: Hacia una poética de la lectura en Pierre Menard de Jorge Luis Borges"
by Santiago Juan-Navarro. {{DEFAULTSORT:Pierre Menard, Author Of The Quixote Menard, Pierre Short stories by Jorge Luis Borges 1939 short stories Works based on Don Quixote Works originally published in Sur (magazine) Postmodern literature Metafictional works