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

Argentine Argentines, Argentinians or Argentineans are people from Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultural. For most Argentines, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their ...

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 regarded as a key figure in Spanish literature, Spanish-language and international literatur ...

. 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 Argentina, Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges. It is the title story in the collection ''El jardín de senderos que ...

'' (''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 Direc ...

'' (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's "review" describes Menard's efforts to go beyond a mere "translation" of ''

Don Quixote , the full title being ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'', is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts in 1605 and 1615, the novel is considered a founding work of Western literature and is of ...

'' 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 In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work exists in written, graphic, visual, or recorded form. The act of creating such a work is referred to as authorship. Therefore, a sculpt ...

, appropriation, and interpretation.

writer and critic

Enrique Anderson Imbert Enrique Anderson-Imbert (February 12, 1910– December 6, 2000) was an Argentine novelist, short-story writer and literary critic. Born in Córdoba, Argentina, the son of Jose Enrique Anderson and Honorina Imbert, Anderson-Imbert graduated from t ...

includes in his book ''Reloj de arena'' (an anthology with works whose plots coincide with famous works published later) a story with content very similar to ''Pierre Menard''. It was published sixteen years before Borges's story under the title ''Corputt'', and its author is a

Polish-American Polish Americans () are Americans who either have total or partial Polish ancestry, or are citizens of the Republic of Poland. There are an estimated 8.81 million self-identified Polish Americans, representing about 2.67% of the U.S. population, ...

writer, Tupper Greenwald. The character in the story is a great admirer of

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

, in particular ''

King Lear ''The Tragedy of King Lear'', often shortened to ''King Lear'', is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It is loosely based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his ...

''. His dream is to write a drama as perfect as ''Lear''. Close to death, he confesses to a colleague his ambition and adds that the night before he managed to finish the dream play. He takes out a manuscript from under his pillow and reads to his colleague the most important lines. The text he wrote and now reads coincides exactly with the text of ''King Lear''.

Analysis

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

literary criticism A genre of arts 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 analysis of literature's ...

, 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 a Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelist ...

' "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" () 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 format and character set. T ...

", 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 independently and at randomness, random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinity, infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text, including the complete works of Willi ...

, 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 Reader-response criticism is a school of literary theory that focuses on the reader (or "audience") and their experience of a literary work, in contrast to other schools and theories that focus attention primarily on the author, content, or form o ...

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 apparent meaning is random and not the product of human action, and is therefore drained of meaning. In the case of Quixote, the human actions of writing and reading the work affect its 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 is a potentially life-threatening condition that arises when the body's response to infection causes injury to its own tissues and organs. This initial stage of sepsis is followed by suppression of the immune system. Common signs and s ...

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 Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism, is a major branch of Protestantism that began during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. In the modern day, it is largely represented by the Continental Reformed Protestantism, Continenta ...

, if not

Masonic Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...

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. T ...

". 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 may refer to: * Alastair Reid (poet) (1926–2014), Scottish poet and scholar of South American literature * Alastair Reid (director) Alastair Reid (21 July 1939 – 17 August 2011) was a Scottish television and film director, ...

, 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 o ...

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, m ...

... 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 ...

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 a ...

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, pai ...

, 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, humorist, and screenwriter, best known as the creator of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. Originally a 1978 BBC radio comedy, ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the ...

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 posthumous collection of previously published and unpublished material by Douglas Adams. It consists largely of essays, interviews, and newspaper/magazine columns about technolo ...

''. In

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

's ''

If on a Winter's Night a Traveler ''If on a winter's night a traveler'' () is a 1979 novel by the Italian writer Italo Calvino. The Postmodern literature, postmodernist narrative, in the form of a frame story, is about the reader trying to read a book called ''If on a winter's n ...

'' (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'' is a novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. It was first published in the literary journal '' The Russian Messenger'' in twelve monthly installments during 1866.

''. This technique was actually attempted by

Hunter S. Thompson Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author, regarded as a pioneer of New Journalism along with Gay Talese, Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Joan Didion, and Tom Wolfe. He rose to prom ...

, 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 narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with Jay Gatsby, a mysterious mi ...

'' when he studied at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

, 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 his satirical trilogy '' The Areas of My Expertise'', '' More Information Than You Require'', and '' That Is ...

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'', 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 filmmaker, photographer, painter, and musician. He has earned acclaim as an independent film, independent auteur. His films typically deal with themes of marginalized subcultures. His ...

shot-for-shot Shot-for-shot (or shot-for-shot adaptation, shot-for-shot remake) is a way to describe a visual work based on an existing work that is transferred almost completely identically from the original work without much interpretation. Production use ...

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

Paul Auster Paul Benjamin Auster (February 3, 1947 – April 30, 2024) was an American writer, novelist, memoirist, poet, and filmmaker. His notable works include '' The New York Trilogy'' (1987), '' Moon Palace'' (1989), '' The Music of Chance'' (1990), ' ...

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 is an Italian, Portuguese and Spanish variation of the male given name Robert. Notable people named Roberto include: * Roberto (footballer, born 1912) * Roberto (footballer, born 1977) * Roberto (footballer, born 1978) * Roberto (footb ...

's novel '' Distant Star'', 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 Fo ...

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

Nazi Literature in the Americas ''Nazi Literature in the Americas'' () is a work of fiction by the Chilean author Roberto Bolaño. It was published in 1996, being later republished by Anagrama. Chris Andrews’ English translation was published in 2008 by New Directions and wa ...

''. The story is referenced in the CD notes of Mostly Other People Do the Killing's 2014 album ''Blue'', which is an exacting replica of

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

' famous 1959 album ''

Kind of Blue ''Kind of Blue'' is a studio album by American jazz musician Miles Davis, released on August17,1959, by Columbia Records. For this album, Davis led a sextet featuring saxophonists John Coltrane and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, pianist Bill Ev ...

''. 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 co ...

'' by

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov ( ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Rus ...

expands the concept of the 'frame narrative' of Borges's 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's 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 writer and professor who published novels, short stories, and essays. He is best known for his 1996 novel ''Infinite Jest'', which ''Time (magazine), Time'' magazine ...

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 – 25 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 popu ...

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

The Death of the Author "The Death of the Author" () is a 1967 essay by the French people, French literary critic and Literary theory, theorist Roland Barthes (1915–1980). Barthes' essay argues against traditional literary criticism's practice of relying on the author ...

") and by

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault ( , ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French History of ideas, historian of ideas and Philosophy, philosopher who was also an author, Literary criticism, literary critic, Activism, political activist, and teacher. Fo ...

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 an American superhero animated series that was produced by Warner Bros. Animation with DC Comics in season 3 and aired on Cartoon Network. Featuring a wide array of superheroes from the DC 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 ...

'', 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''. 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 for NBC. The series premiered on September 19, 2016, and concluded on January 30, 2020, after four seasons consisting of 53 episodes. Although the pl ...

'', 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 ''Los Espookys'' is an American Spanish language comedy television series created by Julio Torres, Ana Fabrega, and Fred Armisen, who also star alongside Bernardo Velasco and Cassandra Ciangherotti. The series follows a group of friends trying ...

'', season 2, episode 3, the character Tati decides to write a novel, which consists of transcribing an audiobook of ''

''. In B. J. Novak's short story collection ''One More Thing'', his story "J.C. Audetat, Translator of ''Don Quixote''" references Borges' "Pierre Menard, Author of the ''Quixote''" on two levels. Novak's story follows a fictional would-be poet named J.C. Audetat who finds an alternate route to literary fame by translating great works into accessible vernacular English. At the narrative level, J.C. Audetat's "translations" blur the line between plagiarism and creation, just as Pierre Menard's "writing" does in Borges' story. At the meta-textual level, Novak's story about plagiarism itself appropriates Borges' original concept, creating a recursive commentary on literary borrowing and originality.

Notes

External links

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

Beatriz Sarlo Beatriz Sarlo (29 March 1942 – 17 December 2024) was an Argentine literary and cultural critic. She was a founding editor of the cultural journal '' Punto de Vista'' ("Point of View"). She became an Order of Cultural Merit laureate in 2009. ...

"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