Talk:Pierre Menard, Author of The Quixote
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I think the sentence
"Effectively, Borges is commenting on how much richer Don Quixote is when read through the filter of over three centuries of intervening history than in its own time."
is highly questionable and ought to be deleted.
First, note that this is an interpretation of the story. Borges never says this is his intent. This is one particular reading, one viewpoing on what Borges is trying to say.
It is also, in my view, a wrong reading, and the sentence is not a simple summary of what precedes it. Reading Menard's Quixote is emphatically NOT reading Quixote with extra centuries of history in mind. Quixote by Cervantes is no more richer now (according to the narrator of the story) then when it was written.Menard's Quixote is deeper by virtue of the philosophical/historical knowledge that is attributed to a 20th century author. In other words, it isn't that new events have changed how we read the texts; its the different assumptions we make about the author that influences our understanding.
Anyway, whether I'm right or wrong in my interpretation is not very relevant; whats relevant is that this is a matter of opinion, not fact, and thus does not belong in an encyclopedia.
Unless someone offers some reasons for keeping, I'd like to delete this sentence. --Pierremenard
- Go ahead and cut it pending citation, I don't have time to research for a citation right now. But I quite disagree with what you've said about "assumptions about the author": Borges's Menard is a fiction, and I continue to argue that he is largely a device for Borges to talk about how we read Don Quixote today, and how the parts that were mundane for Cervantes' contemporaries are part of the romance for us. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:09, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
- Your interpretation may be the right one and my interpretation may be the wrong one. But surely, as long as there is room to disagree here, it is wrong for wikipedia to state that the intentions of the author were this and not that, even if there are some good arguments to support it. --Pierremenard
[edit] are you sure pierre menard did not actually exist?
I believe Pierre Menard was a minor symbolist poet. I haven't found much information about him, but J.G. Cobo Borda, assures it in an interview:
http://www.elheraldo.com.co/revistas/dominical/99-11-14/noti2.htm
- We certainly can mention Cobo Borda's comments in the article without endorsing them. I'd need to see something a lot more solid than this before I'd presume Cobo Borda wasn't just making a joke, though. - Jmabel | Talk 06:01, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
- Done. - Jmabel | Talk 06:14, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
