Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote Critical Essay #7

Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote Critical Essay #7

Following a statement of Menard's intended project, the narrator lets Menard speak for himself, quoting a letter he supposedly wrote him. "'My intent is no more than astonishing,"' Menard wrote, "'The final term in a theological or metaphysical demonstration—the objective world, God, causality, the forms of the universe—is no less previous and common than my famed novel. The only difference is that the philosophers publish their intermediary stages of their labor in pleasant volumes and I have resolved to do away with those stages.' In truth," as the narrator says, continuing the story where Menard left off, "not one worksheet remains to bear witness to his years of effort."

This is parody once again, only this time concerning the inflated self-images of artistes and assorted defenders of the intellectual realm. It's also a send-up of the sort of Manifesto of Grand Artistic Purpose that self-righteous guardians of high culture...
(read more)