Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote

Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote Summary | Detailed Summary

This "fictional essay" takes the form of a literary review of the work of the deceased French symbolist and poet Pierre Menard. The narrator is prompted to write the essay after reading a recent article by Madame Henri Bachelier, who he believes has not done justice to Menard's accomplishments. Therefore, this review is written to set the record straight. While admittedly not a great authority on Menard's work, the narrator believes that testimonies from the Baroness de Barcourt and Countess de Bagnoregio will lend authority to this review.

The essay begins by listing a detailed, chronological account of Menard's work, which includes various obscure sonnets, biographical monographs and numerous translations. After presenting the catalog, the narrator suggests that Menard's most important work is his body of unfinished writings, which take the form of selected readings based on Don Quixote.

The narrator is concerned over recent "parasitic" writings by other authors, who take original characters such as Hamlet and Don Quixote and place them in bizarre twentieth century plot lines. The narrator agrees with Menard in stating that these books are loathsome and serve no real purpose. Furthermore, it is insulting to suggest that Menard undertook this style of writing when he wrote the Quixote. The narrator points out that Menard "did not want to compose another Quixote, which is easy, but to write the Quixote itself." Menard did not want to copy the book; his goal was to write a few pages independently, which would coincide, "word for word, and line for line," with the original version by the author, Miguel de Cervantes.

In order to accomplish this, Menard proposed several possibilities. These included learning Spanish well, rediscovering the Catholic faith, fighting against the Moors or the Turks, forgetting the history of Europe from 1602 to 1918, and becoming Miguel de Cervantes. Menard later rejected these possibilities and the idea of becoming Miguel de Cervantes in order to write the Quixote. He believed that it would be far more interesting to continue being Pierre Menard and to arrive at the Quixote through his own experiences. Menard believed that Cervantes had it easy when he wrote Don Quixote in the seventeenth century; all Cervantes had to do was allow the power of language and invention to guide him. Menard believed it would be much more difficult, almost impossible, for him to write such a book in the twentieth century.

The narrator writes that while the texts of Don Quixote and the Quixote are identical, Menard's version is infinitely richer, more vivid, and subtler in style. The narrator finds Cervantes's chapters to be clumsy and provincial, devoting too much time to the emphasis of history and local color. Fortunately, Menard correctly eliminated these elements from the Quixote. To be fair, however, the narrator does acknowledge that there are some flaws in Menard's work. Primarily, as a twentieth century French poet, Menard failed to master the seventeenth century Spanish as well as Cervantes had done in his version.

The review credits Menard for championing thinking, analyzing and inventing as everyday commonplace tasks, which should not be considered occasional functions of the brain, but ongoing requirements. The narrator concludes that Menard assisted in resurrecting the art of reading and that he should be attributed with giving people a way to reexamine the old tired classics with new eyes to adventure.