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http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-7968.2017v37n2p55
PIERRE MENARD AS LOGOCENTRIC TRANSLATOR:
A REAPPRAISAL OF ROSEMARY ARROJO’S ANALYSIS
OF “PIERRE MENARD, AUTOR DEL QUIJOTE”
Fabiano Fernandes*
Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina
Abstract: This article revaluates Brazilian theorist Rosemary Arrojo’s
reading of “Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote”, by Argentinian writer
Jorge Luis Borges, proposing that her claims might be excessive, and
calling into question the extent to which “Pierre Menard” can be read as
a piece on translation. The first section briefly sketches deconstruction’s
view on language and Arrojos’ own work; the second summarizes
Arrojo’s analysis as contained in Oficina de tradução; the third exposes
its limitations: its allegorical nature, its drawing upon a problematically
amalgamating take on reading, interpretation and translation, the story’s
difficult alignment with certain logocentric tenets and internal limitations
of logocentrism’s take on language; the final section evaluates the role
of George Steiner’s commentary on the short story as formative of the
opinion that “Pierre Menard” is about translation.
Keywords: Jorge Luis Borges; “Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote”;
Rosemary Arrojo; logocentrism; George Steiner
* Possui graduação em Licenciatura em letras: inglês (1999) e Doutorado em Li-
teratura (2004), ambos pela Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Atualmente,
realiza estágio pós-doutoral, iniciado no segundo semestre de 2016, na Pós-Gra-
duação em Estudos da Tradução, centrado na tradução de “Comus” (1634), de
John Mclton.Florianópolis,Santa Catarina, Brasil. E-mail: fbnfnds@gmail.com
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Fabiano Fernandes
PIERRE MENARD, TRADUTOR LOGOCÊNTRICO:
UMA REAVALIAÇÃO DA ANÁLISE DE ROSEMARY
ARROJO DE “PIERRE MENARD, AUTOR DEL
QUIJOTE”
Resumo: Este artigo reavalia a leitura feita pela teórica brasileira Rosema-
ry Arrojo do conto “Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote”, do escritor argen-
tino Jorge Luis Borges; propõe que suas conclusões sobre o conto podem
ser excessivas, e questiona até que ponto o conto pode ser lido como uma
obra sobre tradução. A primeira seção esquematiza brevemente a visão da
desconstrução sobre a linguagem, e o trabalho de Arrojo; a segunda resu-
me a análise que faz Arrojo do conto, conforme aparece em seu Oficina
de tradução; a terceira expões suas limitações: sua natureza alegórica, seu
embasamento em uma problemática amálgama entre leitura, interpretação
e tradução, as dificuldades em se alinhar o conto aos pressupostos centrais
do logocentrismo e as contradições internas do logocentrismo; a seção
final avalia o papel de um comentário de George Steiner para a formação
da opinião de que o conto versa sobre tradução.
Palavras-chave: Jorge Luis Borges; “Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote”;
Rosemary Arrojo; logocentrismo; George Steiner
1. Translation and deconstruction: a brief overview
Equivalence has remained a central problem for Translation
Studies from before its scientific era. We may easily ascertain
this by quickly glancing at two theoretical testimonies of scholars
who have reviewed the various theories of translation: Antony
Pym dedicates the first two chapters of his Exploring Translations
Theories (2010, pp. 06-42) to equivalence theories; the following
chapters will all deal with theories which, one way or another,
endeavor to counter the concept, while, as Pym shows, holding
various levels of compatibility with it. In a similar manner,
Edwin Gentzler, in the penultimate chapter of his Contemporary
Translation Theories (2nd rev. ed. 2001), claims that all theories
reviewed in his previous chapters depend on some version of the
concept of equivalence; all of them, Gentlzer says, are “unified
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by a conceptual framework that assumes original presence and a
representation of it in the receiving society” (p. 145).
This take on translation—which most likely guides our everyday
practices concerning production and reception of translations,
and which may even justify our very need of them—draws upon
a rapport between language, on the one hand, and its users and
external “concrete” reality, on the other, which accepts language’s
descriptive power over an independent, non-linguistic world.
Speakers—fully conscious subjects, and in full access and control
of their mental contents—manipulate linguistic signs, the meaning
of which is pre-determined by their relation to external referents
(external to both signs and subject), and which help them refer to
what they see, mentally manipulate what they do not see, and even
make up what does not exist. Natural languages thus gain form
and function by allowing a knowing subject to, more than speak of
things, know them, while thoroughly and consciously working out
their expressive potential in order to control their ambiguities and
have them reach zones which their current shape cannot encompass.
The above briefly sketches the theoretical framework
problematized by deconstruction. Drawing upon the likes of
Nietzsche, Heidegger, Benjamin, Foucault, Freud and (not
unsurprisingly) Saussure, and destabilizing concepts such as
subject, conscience, knowledge, and language, as well as the
relations between signifier and signified, deconstruction promotes
reading practices which excavate texts in search of inconsistencies,
and expose the illusion of a fully conscious knowing subject, able to
reach the original essence (or presence, as deconstructionists would
have it) which is the source of the very possibility of knowledge—
illusion which they call logocentrism.
Reflection on translation may assume a potentially disturbing
role against such a framework. Contact between languages
exposes that which seems to lie between or beyond the grasp of
linguistic expression. Search for identity reveals différance—
which is simultaneously distinction and deferment in Derrida’s
coinage. According to Gentlzer, Derrida is interested in the
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process of translation, because it is during this pre-textual moment
that search of equivalence takes place, and differences between
languages’ expressive grasp become visible (2001, p. 165); this
moment enhances hope of overcoming differences, as the desire
for stable semantic essence comes to the fore. The presence of
this transcendental meaning vanishes, however, as translation
goes from moveable process to final product: when a chain of
signifiers is decided upon and fixed into place, not only differences
in meaning between original and translation are fixed alongside
with the signals taken as equivalents in both languages (differences
which will persist, despite our best efforts to oust them), but also
the very chains remain open to the possibility of further shifts,
due to semantic dislocation in the arbitrary and unstable relations
between signifier-signified and sign-community. Deconstruction
thinks translation not as a preserver of essences, but as a source of
perpetual differentiation.
In Translation Studies, Brazilian scholar Rosemary Arrojo
remains a most cherished name for fostering deconstruction in
her native soil by reflecting on translation. To the logocentric
metaphor of translation as substitution/transportation (she has
them as a single unity, despite their quite dissimilar metaphorical
substrata), Arrojo prefers that of translation as palimpsest: an act
of writing, reading and interpretation superimposed to a previous
linguistic utterance, which is partially deleted in result (1886/2007,
p. 23). While the first metaphor thinks translation according to its
potential for functional or semantic identity and its maintenance—
that is, from its capacity to realize the presence of transcendental
meaning—, the second emphasizes the dislocation of meaning
across signifiers, and consequently the differences sanctioned in
our reading, interpreting and translating practices.
One of her favorite targets is the concept of fidelity (momentarily,
we may safely assume it as a near-synonym for equivalence), which
is responsible not only for defining translation in reference to its
original, but especially for setting the former as inferior to the
latter. As she correctly points out, translators are not faithful to the
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texts they translate, but to their interpretations thereof, as well as
their own personal views of reading and translating (1993, p. 25).
When commenting the quarrel between Nelson Arscher (reviewer
of John Donne, o poeta do amor e da morte) and Paulo Vizioli
(compiler and translator of that book), Arrojo seeks to demonstrate
that neither Vizioli nor Augusto de Campos (whose translation
Arscher champions as superior to Vizioli’s) possess the original
meaning of Donne’s poems; each translator works based on their
own interpretation of Donne’s work, and not on a supposedly
original presence to which they had direct access, and which could
be transposed correctly or incorrectly to Portuguese.
This 0thin a given community, which may be as small as mid-
1930s Rutherford, New Jersey [p. 35] or encompass all readers of
Western Literature)? Its symbolism (allusion to sensual pleasure
or transgression)? Its intertextual value (reference to the fruit as
opened or veiled reference to fruits previously mentioned in the
history of Western Literature)? The meaning to be thus translated
is that which the translator generates as reader, constructed along
the process of making sense of the poem.
In the practical chapters of her Oficina de tradução, Arrojo
explains her readings of the poems she had proposed for translation
and the translations of which she had evaluated, in order to show
awareness of the fact that her starting point is an interpretation, and
to dismiss the idea that she has correctly unveiled the true meaning
of a fully established and stable text (the efficiency of this gesture
will be commented on below, see 3.4).
2. Arrojo reads “Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote”
In her Oficina de tradução, and in all likelihood following a
cue by George Steiner (1975/1988), Arrojo will read Argentinian
writer Jorge Luis Borges’ short story “Pierre Menard, autor
del Quijote” (henceforth pmaq) as an allegory of the logocentric
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view on translation, and at the same time of its overcoming. Her
palimpsest metaphor was taken from Borges’ story.
Her analysis of pmaq can be divided in three parts: (1) an
analysis of Menard’s visible work, as described in the short story
(1986/2207, pp. 14-8); (2) a description of Menard’s invisible work
(1986/2007, pp. 19-22); (3) the proposal of a new exemplary image
for translation (1986/2007, pp. 22-4). The first two allegorize the
logocentric view on language and translation; the third, based
on Menard’s failure, problematizes this view and proposes an
alternative.
2.1 Menard’s “complete works”
At the beginning of pmaq, the narrator, a literary critic and
personal friend of Menard’s, establishes the entirety of his
published and unpublished works. Arrojo states that “if we
closely analyze Menard’s theoretical works, we will see they have
a lot in common with traditional translation theories. Menard
conceives the text as an object with perfectly defined boundaries;
he therefore believes it is possible to reproduce, in another
language, the ideas, the style and the nature of the original text in
their entirety” (1986/2007, p. 14)1.
The thinkers Menard had studied are dear to Borges, and
mentioned elsewhere in his writings: René Descartes, Gottfried
Wilhelm Leibniz, John Wilkins, Ramón Llull, George Boole and
Bertrand Russell. Many are related to logic, that is, to the project of
developing a universal, immediately intelligible language, in which
signifier and signified, on the one hand, and sings and syntax, on
the other, relate to one another unambiguously, thus distancing
themselves from the obscurities of everyday talk. Such thinkers
1 [s]e analisarmos mais detidamente seus trabalhos teóricos [os de Menard], veremos que
têm muito em comum com as teorias tradicionais da tradução. Menard concebe o texto
como um objeto de contornos perfeitamente determináveis, acreditando, portanto, que seja
possível […] reproduzir totalmente, em outra língua, as idéias, o estilo e a natureza de um
texto original. (All translations are mine.)
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endeavor to bring to completion a project in which language can
be a direct expression of knowledge; symbolic language would
reproduce in its internal relations the factual relations obtaining in the
non-linguistic world, being thus free of intelligibility threats posed
by the pragmatics of synchronicity and diachronic variation. They
represent, Arrojo says, a logocentric concept of language, which
underlies a logocentric translation project (1986/2007, p. 17).
She then moves on from logic to literature: “Menard believes
literary criticism, just as translation or reading, should not
‘interpret’ or go beyond the original text; instead, they should trace
its objective, immutable contours” (1986/2007, p. 18) 2.
Finally, she demonstrates that Menard’s poetry reveals the
impossibility of full transfer of meaning and the stabilization of
signs, due to the appearance of some “manuscript translations”
(which would be a sign of their unstable character, Arrojo says)
and of a sonnet published twice with variants (1986/2007, p. 18).
Among Menard’s poetic writings, item “o”, which Arrojo does
not mention, should command our attention: “A transposition into
alexandrines of Paul Valéry’s Cimetière marin (N.R.F., Jan/1928)”
(1996, p. 445)3. Sheer transposition from 10-syllable to 12-syllable
verse echoes Herbert Ashe’s task in “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius”:
“One afternoon, we [the narrator and Ashe] spoke of the duodecimal
number system (in which twelve is written 10). Ashe told me that
he was just transposing I don’t know which duodecimal tables into
sexagesimal tables (in which sixty is written 10)” (1996, p. 433)4.
Both men are transposing—which word denotes no more than a
shift in signifiers. It is, however, no metaphorical approximation
2 Menard […] considera que a crítica, como a tradução ou a leitura, não deve ‘interpretar’ ou
ir além do texto original e, sim, delimitar seus contornos objetivos e imutáveis.
3 Una transposición en alejandrinos del Cimetière marin, de Paul Valéry (N.R.F., enero de
1928).
4 Una tarde, hablamos del sistema duodecimal de numeración (en que el doce se escribe 10).
Ashe dijo precisamente que estaba transladando no sé qué tablas duodecimales a sexagesi-
males (en las que sessenta se escribe 10).
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to state that Ashe is translating between systems, which act would
envisage perfect and full transference of meanings forever fixed
in the original source-system. Readers of Borges may be prone to
approximate Ashe’s work to Menard’s; this would most certainly
benefit Arrojo’s claims, as it strengthens the idea that Menard
would not intend to affect the meaning of Valéry’s poem.
2.2 Menard’s “invisible work”
Menard’s “impossible task” does not belong to his catalogue of
published works; as is well known, he proposes to write verbatim
a previously existing novel. Arrojo describes Menard’s intent as
follows: “Pierre Menard seeks totality: total interpretation, total
control over the text, ‘total identification with a given author’”
(1986/2007, p. 19)5.
Arrojo believes Menard’s writing project to be associated with
a translation theory: “Menard’s ‘invisible’ project reflects a theory
of translation (and of reading) similar to those of Catford and Nida,
since his starting point is a theory of language which sanctions
the possibility of determining and delimiting the full meaning of a
word, even a text, regardless of the context in which it is read or
heard” (1986/2007, p. 19)6.
His “mysterious task or literally reconstructing Cervantes’
spontaneous work”, Arrojo claims, “can be interpreted as an
allegory [emphasis added, more on this word below] of what
is traditionally the goal of every translation: Menard imposes
on himself the repetition of a foreign text, written in a foreign
language, by a different author at a different time, while
remaining his own self, that is, without annulling his own context
5 Pierre Menard busca a totalidade: interpretação total, controle total sobre o texto, ‘total
identificação com um autor determinado’.
6 O projeto “invisível” de Menard reflete, portanto, uma teoria da tradução (e uma teoria
da leitura) semelhante à de Catford ou Nida, já que parte de uma teoria da linguagem que
autoriza a possibilidade de determinar e delimitar o significado de uma palavra, ou mesmo
de um texto, fora do contexto em que é lida ou ouvida. (1986/2007, p. 19.)
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and circumstances” (1986/2007, p. 20)7. Arrojo calls him a
supertranslator (1986/2007, p. 20); however, his supertranslation
results in failure, due to the distinct readings triggered by
“original” and “translation”. Ironically, by seeking to repeat
Cervantes’ full text, Menard demonstrates the impossibility of
full repetition, precisely because the words in Cervantes’ novel
cannot stabilize their “original” meaning, regardless of context or
interpretation (1986/2007, pp. 21-2).
2.3 A new “exemplary image” of translation
Menard’s failure and the narrator’s critical reading—in praising
Menard, he actually bore witness to the poet’s lack of success—
prompt Arrojo to her final analytical step, when she proposes a
new definition of translation:
Text and sign are no longer viewed as the “faithful” rep-
resentation of a stable object existing outside language’s
endless labyrinth and begin to be viewed as a machine of
potential meaning. Consequently, the exemplary image of
the “original” text is no longer that of determinable, fully
retrievable cargo; instead of regarding text or sign as ves-
sels to “content” which may be placed therein and kept in
control, I propose that their exemplary image is that of a
palimpsest. Metaphorically, in our translation “workshop”,
a “palimpsest” is a text which vanishes, in each cultural
community and at different times, in order to give place to
a different writing (or interpretation, or reading, or transla-
tion) of the “same” text. Translation, as reading, ceases to
be an activity protective of “original” authorial meaning to
become producer of meaning; protecting meaning would be
7 [O] misterioso dever de reconstruir literalmente a obra espontânea de Cervantes pode
ser interpretado como uma alegoria do que tradicionalmente se pretende atingir em toda
tradução: Menard se impõe a tarefa de repetir um texto estrangeiro, escrito em outra língua,
por um outro autor e num outro momento, sem deixar de ser ele próximo, isto é, sem poder
anular seu contexto e suas circunstâncias.
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impossible, as borgesian Pierre Menard has so aptly (and
so contradictorily) demonstrated. (1986/2007, pp. 23-4.)8
Besides the evidently borgesian use of labyrinth, the very image
of the palimpsest is borrowed from Borges’ pmaq, even though
Arrojo does not repeat the narrator’s precise use thereof: “I ponder
that it is licit to see in the ‘final’ Quijote a sort of palimpsest, in which
there should appear the traces—subtle though not undecipherable—
of the ‘previous’ writing of our friend Menard” (1996, p. 450)9.
The traces the narrator sees in the Quijote are those of Menard’s
authorial conscience; Arrojo is not concerned with these, but with
those they superimpose and erase. Her view and the narrator’s are
differently focused, though not incompatible.
3. Limitations in Arrojo’s reading
I have so far described Arrojo’s interpretation as an allegory; in
doing so, I emphasize a word she has herself used to describe her
reading. I believe the emphasis is necessary: though it is possible to
think of pmaq as being about the failure of logocentric translation,
8 O texto, como o signo, deixa de ser a representação “fiel” de um objeto estável que possa
existir fora do labirinto infinito da linguagem e passa a ser uma máquina de significados
em potencial. A imagem exemplar do texto “original” deixa de ser, portanto, a de uma
seqüência de vagões que contêm uma carga determinável e totalmente resgatável. Ao invés
de considerarmos o texto, ou o signo, como um receptáculo em que algum “conteúdo”
possa ser depositado e mantido sob controle, proponho que sua imagem exemplar passe
a ser a de um palimpsesto. […] § Metaforicamente, em nossa “oficina”, o “palimpsesto”
passa a ser um texto que se apaga, em cada comunidade cultural e em casa época, para
dar lugar a outra escritura (ou interpretação, ou leitura, ou tradução) do “mesmo” texto.
[…] § A tradução, como a leitura, deixa de ser, portanto, uma atividade que protege os
significados “originais” de um autor, e assume sua condição de produtora de significados;
mesmo porque protegê-los seria impossível, como tão bem (e tão contrariadamente) nos
demonstrou o borgiano Pierre Menard.
9 He reflexionado que es lícito ver en el Quijote “final” una espécie de palimpsesto, en el
que deben traslucirse los rastros—tenues pero no indescifrables—de la “previa” escritura de
nuestro amigo [Menard].
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we must remain aware that this critical gesture is contingent (at
best) or arbitrary (at worst).
3.1 Allegorical reading
Arrojo seems quite certain that pmaq is about translation.
Despite her use of the word allegory, she (and others who read
Borges’s story in a similar key, as will be pointed later) does not
always demonstrate awareness of how impactful this actually is.
pmaq approaches the issue of translation (it does mention them, for
example) and even flirts with the comparison between Menard’s
task and that of a translator, but that is not the same as making
translation the full-blown central theme of the story, so as to
provide sufficient support for a strong version of Arrojo’s reading.
It is Menard himself (as cited by the narrator) the one to mention
Cervantes’ novel as an original: “it is undeniable that my problem
is far more difficult than Cervantes’. My complacent precursor
has not refused collaborating with chance; his immortal piece was
composed à la diable, so to say, driven by the inertia of language
and invention. I have undertaken the mysterious duty of literally
reconstructing his spontaneous work. My solitary task is ruled by
two polar laws: the first allows me to experiment with formal or
psychological variants; the second compels me to sacrifice them to
the ‘original’ text, and to build undisputable reasoning to justify
such annihilation” (1996, p. 448)10. Arrojo overlooks this passage
in her analysis. The key to her disregard might lie in the inverted
comas: they hint that Menard’s Quijote is similar to a translation
of Cervantes’, but it is not one. Undoubtedly, Cervantes’ novel
10 es indiscutible que mi problema es harto más difícil que el de Cervantes. Mi complaciente
precursor no rehusó la colaboración del azar: iba componiendo la obra inmortal un poco à
la diable, llevado por inercias del lenguaje y de la invención. Yo he contraído el misterioso
deber de reconstruir literalmente su obra espontánea. Mi solitario juego está gobernado por
dos leyes polares. La primera me permite ensayar variantes de tipo formal o psicológico;
la segunda me obliga a sacrificarlas al texto ‘original’ y a razonar de un modo irrefutable
esa aniquilación...
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and Menard’s “text” bear some type of identity relation, which
supports the comparison with an original-translation textual pair.
However, the privileged type of intertextual relation obtaining
between original and translation is not the only one possible
between any textual pair; also, other elements in the story seem to
cancel a strong version of this comparison:
(1) First, Menard learns Spanish and writes his Quichotte in
Spanish: no language shift, between languages or within a single
language, is outlined.
(2) Menard’s explicit refusal to copy or transcribe Cervantes’ novel
(1996, p. 446) should imply having no contact with it. He claims
to have read it “when I was twelve or thirteen, perhaps throughout.
After that, I have closely reread a few chapters, those I shall not
attempt for now. My overall memory of the Quijote, simplified by
oblivion and indifference, may very well resemble the imprecise
previous image of a book not written” (1996, p. 448)11. His
contact with the Quijote is markedly different from the careful and
extensive attention translators (literary or not) must pay to their
original. The textual pair of Cervantes’ and Menard’s Quijote bear
an outline-final text relation, which is significantly distinct from the
original-translation one.
Arrojo will ponder on the question of why Menard chose the
Quijote for his literary enterprise (1993, pp. 91-114; 2004); we
need no go over her reflections on that head, but I would like
to provide a fitting explanation: Menard would have possibly
kept better memory of a work he held in higher esteem; his
arguably more accurate memory, if precise enough, would,
indeed, amount to copying or transcribing. This explanation
finds further support in his decision not to begin his Quijote by
11 a los doce o trece años, tal vez integralmente. Después he releído con atención algunos
capítulos, aquellos que no intentaré por ahora. […] Mi recuerdo general de Quijote,
simplificado por el olvido y la indiferencia, puede muy bien equivaler a la imprecisa imagen
anterior de un libro no escrito.
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those chapters he read more attentively, and of which he would
probably hold better memory.
(3) Finally, other inverted comas—those in final and previous,
below—bear witness to the partiality of the resemblance: “I ponder
that it is licit to see in the ‘final’ Quijote a sort of palimpsest, in which
there should appear the traces—subtle though not undecipherable—
of the ‘previous’ writing of our friend Menard” (1996, p. 450)12.
This passage alludes to reading Cervantes’ novel as if it had been
entirely rewritten by Menard: the novel, in Menard’s project, holds
the position of target-text; Menard’s goal is not the depart from
it, but to arrive at it; if boyhood memories work as outline, the
existing finished novel functions as a sort of answer key against
which to verify the correctness of Menard’s solutions. The answer-
key comparison is furthered by Menard’s taste for logic, and by
the way he reasons to bring his enterprise to term (see below, 3.3).
Menard’s writing process, given the above, is not strictly identical
with that of a translation; his search for equivalence is not the same
as a translator’s, who begins from a very well-established point of
departure (please note well-established need not mean completely
established) to reach an initially undetermined point of rest, which
progressively takes shape and is, even when considered finished,
open to criticism and revision.
Arrojo’s analysis is weakened by its contingent, ill-justified nature:
Menard’s invisible work is not, strictly speaking, a commentary on
(logocentric) translation because Menard has no intention of translating.
Some textual cues may, it is true, allow for allegoric interpretation
bent on emphasizing what Menard’s task and a translator’s have in
common—search for some type of equivalence—; Arrojo’s gesture has
therefore some foundation, but it cannot be said to follow necessarily
from strong structural cuing in pmaq.
12 He reflexionado que es lícito ver en el Quijote “final” una espécie de palimpsesto, en el
que deben traslucirse los rastros—tenues pero no indescifrables—de la “previa” escritura de
nuestro amigo [Menard].
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3.2 Conceptual definitions: reading and interpretation
What cues Arrojo’s statement of a strong closeness between
pmaq and translation is not so much Menard’s relation to translation
as his relation to reading. Deconstruction emphasizes difference
and creativity in translation; this causes Arrojo to very strongly
approximate reading, interpreting and translating, to the point that
they become nearly indiscernible. (She will comment specifically
on the logocentric take on the differences between comprehension
and interpretation and its implication on logocentric translation in
her article “Compreender x interpretar e a questão da tradução”
[see Arrojo, 2003]).
Arrojo is not alone in approximating translation and interpretation:
Eco (2007, pp. 270-6) shows that the identity between the two
concepts has a history in Hermeneutics; proponents of such identity
include Heidegger, Gadamer, Ricœur and Steiner. He takes pains to
prove that both Pierce and Jakobson (taking the cue of his tripartite
typology of translation from Pierce) did not really mean the two
concepts should be identified; he claims Pierce uses translation as
a synecdoche (not as a synonym) for interpretation (2007, pp. 265-
70), and Jakobson’s use of Pierce’s idea follows suit.
Eco agrees that every translation is a mode of interpretation,
but believes it is undesirable to equate the two. I would agree with
Eco; consequently, I believe that deconstruction, though criticizing
logocentrism for devaluing translations as inferior to their originals,
promotes a similar devaluing by inflating it to signify nearly every
single instance of meaning production.
I would like to advance two testimonies of this inadvertent
impoverishment. Nicholas Round, when describing metaphors
for translation, begins his article by commenting on the reserve
practice, that of using translation as a metaphor for other
cognitive phenomena. He questions the relevance of such overall
identification:
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The proposition that “There is something called translation,
which, besides being what translators do is (more or less)
what all other attempts at organizing or applying knowledge
amount to” can tell us very little about translation. It re-
duces any notion of that undertaking to the minimal element
which all those others have in common with it. About them
it tells us only that one thing; so it cannot tell us much about
them either. […] A temptation always exists to elevate the
theoretical parts of one’s own discipline into a “theory of
everything”. (2005, p. 48.)
In a similar vein, Alex Bühler also criticizes such generalizations
for being so extensive they destroy the very possibility of adequately
using a given term or studying the phenomenon it names. He is
especially concerned with the words translation and interpretation
and their respective concepts:
interpreting is any activity aiming at bringing about com-
prehension, and translating has the same aim, but normally
involves a different language in which comprehension is to
take place. Thus “Every translation is an interpretation”
merely says that an activity aiming at comprehension is an
activity aiming at comprehension. The unelaborated thesis
of translation as interpretation does not convey more than
its triteness. (In RiccaRdi [ed.], 2002, p. 56.)
Bühler undertakes an investigation bent on unveiling the precise
relation between interpretation and translation, demonstrating the
need to acknowledge that, even though instances of translation must
be rightfully considered instances of interpretation, the opposite is
not always acceptable.
At the end of pmaq, the narrator informs us that Menard’s
invisible work “has enriched the careful and rudimentary art of
reading by means of a new technique: that of deliberate anachronism
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and erroneous attribution” (1996, p. 450)13. The story thus aligns
with a significant portion of Borges’ work, devoted to fictionally
and critically problematizing the act of reading—which Arrojo
herself has aptly noted in some of her writings on this short story.
But it does not follow from that that we may simply identify what
pmaq terms reading with what Arrojo terms translation.
3.3 Central aspects of logocentrism
As reading and interpretation seem synonymous for Arrojo, her
allegory is enriched with a new difficulty: there are no clear cues in
pmaq that Menard is keen on having “total control over the text”,
in the sense of efficiently and permanently controlling its meaning.
As the true source of awe in Menard’s project lies in the chain of
signifiers, pmaq is reasonably vague when it comes to meaning.
Menard’s visible work seems to approximate language use
and criticism to formal logic; he describes his task in terms not
dissimilar to a logical experiment: “My solitary task is ruled by
two polar laws: the first allows me to experiment with formal or
psychological variants; the second compels me to sacrifice them to
the ‘original’ text, and to build undisputable reasoning to justify
such annihilation” (1996, p. 448, emphases added)14. He conceives
his writing process as the orchestration of signs in a necessary order
(verifiable in the finished Quijote, functioning as an answer-key)
from minimal cues worked out by deductive reasoning; this would
arguably undermine the role of meaning in his process: symbolic
logic is concerned with syntactic relations between propositions,
regardless of their content.
Differences in meaning between the finished and the “invisible”
Quijote are pointed not by Menard, but by his critic. The famous
13 ha enriquecido mediante una técnica nueva el arte detenido y rudimentario de la lectura:
la técnica del anacronismo deliberado y de las atribuiciones erróneas.
14 Mi solitario juego está gobernano por dos leyes polares. La primera me permite ensayar
variantes de tipo formal o psicológico; la segunda me obliga a sacrificarlas al texto ‘original’
y a razonar de un modo irrefutable esa aniquilación…
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comparison between two identical passages of the Quijote is a
critical gesture, and there is more to it than one may see when one
takes it too seriously (see below, 3.5). This gesture does not bear
witness to Menard’s failure, as Arrojo believes; on the contrary,
it shows that he was successful in what he intended: faithful
reconstruction of a chain of signifiers. It is my opinion that Arrojo
has misunderstood Menard’s failure, which is not the result of the
critic’s interpretation, but of two rather trivial facts: the first is that
he did not finish rewriting the Quijote. (Actually, he may not have
begun it: the narrator states Menard has destroyed his “endless
drafts”. Are we being invited to disbelieve their existence? See
below, 3.5.) The second is that, had he done so, his novel would
have generated a chain of signifiers absolutely undistinguishable
from that of a previously existing novel, and would therefore be
utterly unable to bear witness to its own existence as a separate
work. (This impossibility would reinforce the role played by
Menard’s literary milieu: if his work is indiscernible from a canonic
piece, it can only be made visible with the help of those working
within his literary system. Theirs is the task of stating there is
something which is invisible—hence the particular interest of the
narrator. See below, 3.5.) The narrator’s criticism—his differing
interpretations, his comparison between passages and his simulated
reading of passages Menard had not accomplished—are, in fact,
part of a strategy to show Menard was at least partially successful,
and to retrieve his work from utter invisibility.
I could provide here a counterargument in favor of Arrojo.
Menard says: “El Quijote was above all a pleasant book; now it
provides occasion for patriotic toasts, grammatical snobbery and
obscenely rich editions. Glory is incomprehension, perhaps the
worst type” (1996, p. 450)15. Arrojo could have benefited from
the word incomprehension, and stated that, for Menard, if others
do not understand, it is because, for him, the Quijote does have
15 El Quijote—dijo Menard—fue ante todo un libro agradable; ahora es una ocasión de
brindis patrióticos, de soberbia gramatical, de obscenas ediciones de lujo. La gloria es una
incomprensión y quizá la peor.
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a stable meaning (i.e. to be a pleasant book) which others do not
apprehend, but he does. Still, Menard seems here to realize that
(much to his dismay, perhaps) the Quijote has, indeed, changed over
the centuries; it would be therefore difficult to state that he believed
in its immutability. He recognizes the possibility of interpretive
shifts, and may not deem it incompatible with his project.
It may also be argued against the thesis of a desire for “total control
of meaning” that, even though Menard’s project bears resemblance
to a combinational view on language in the fashion of Ramón Llull,
there is no need to infer that his project wished or saw as necessary
to eliminate lack of control over language and meaning, nor does it
mean he was not aware of it. All theorists to whom Menard alludes
must have been fully aware of the ambiguities of language use. There
is oversimplifying exaggeration in supposing that Menard would
ignore these problems precisely as he tried to overcome them. The
theories of language, reading and translation Arrojo dismissingly calls
logocentric are not incompatible with a certain degree of instability,
and consequently neither would a project based on them.
3.4 Internal contradictions of logocentrism
Lack of central aspects of logocentrism in Menard’s project is
allied with limitations in Arrojo’s description of what logocentric
translation would be. In an article dedicated to Arrojo, Brazilian
critic and translator Paulo Henriques Britto seeks to demonstrate that
deconstruction “saws the very branch upon which it sits” (2001, p.
46)16; for him, her analysis shows a fundamental inconsistency in
deconstruction, which underlies what may be its most serious flaw:
as deconstruction aims to be a critique of Western knowledge and
its presuppositions, it is not a truly productive theory; when it stops
problematizing and endeavors to take a more positive role—e.g.
the very act of writing a text—, it must tacitly assume some of the
presuppositions about language and translation it explicitly condemns.
16 cerra o próprio galho em que está sentada.
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In its section concerned with translation criticism and practice,
Arrojo’s translation workshop draws back on schemes very
similar to those employed in any equivalence-based translator-
training program. Though she was careful to single her reading/
interpretation of her model-poems as hers (i.e. not universally
true, not complete and final), due to lack of any description, real
or hypothetic, of how translators themselves conceived of poetry,
translation and of the poems they translated, her interpretation is
still held up against poem and original in the position of tertium
comparationis, from which translational accuracy or correction
may be judged, and alternatives sought. Her workshop cannot but
encompass some version of equivalence, as Gentlzer had affirmed
of other translation theories. As Britto points out, the very acts
of translating and citing translations (and she goes as far as citing
indirect translations, Britto notes) imply “logocentric” ideas about
reading, writing, and translation, without which writing would be
impossible (2001, pp. 42-4).
Deconstruction thus ignores the practical potential and the
intuitive strength of the concepts it rejects, and fails to notice that
it seems to fundamentally depend on them to be spelled out as a
theory. In the case of Arrojo’s workshop, her allegorical reading
of pmaq shows this: equivalence is not only the basis for allegorical
constructions; it also demands it to the highest level. Components
of any allegorical piece must bear as precise a relation to those
of the allegorized extract from reality as possible; the closer the
relation, the stronger the allegorical impact. It is not surprising,
then, that criticism of Arrojo’s interpretation was developed by
taking perceived flaws in correspondence into account.
3.5 Pierre Menard’s literary milieu and its impact on his
“invisible work”
I hinted earlier that Menard’s dealings with the Quijote might
have been taken too seriously. Let us expand on this idea.
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For starters, a careful reading of the story should be suspicious
of the narrator’s good intentions. Critics seem to have overlooked
the fact that it is not Menard himself who describes his work. pmaq
is also a story about an apparently mediocre literary environment,
the members of which exhume the memory of a late minor poet,
in order to establish themselves against one another. The most
recurring reminder of this is the tense relation between the narrator
and another critic of Menard’s work, Madame Henri Bachelier; he
seems many times intent on countering or belittling her: his list of
Menard’s “complete works” corrects hers, by excluding an item
she had (with no good reason, according to him) included; he also
excludes from his own list Menard’s works somehow related to her;
close to the end of the story, he accuses her of plagiarism. Also,
just as Menard might have depended on the favor of the decadent
nobility he praised in portraits and poems, the narrator uses the
“authority” of such figures (to whom he pays compliments) to
strengthen his own: his authority therefore circularly depends on
that of people he himself authorizes. If we take this background into
consideration, his critical reading of Menard’s Quijote as differing
(and even surpassing) Cervantes’ cannot be rigorously taken as a
true perception of differences; his is not a disinterested reading.
Humor also seems to play an unrecognized role in the composition
of the story. Failure to critically take humor into account may
result in describing Menard’s invisible work more earnestly than
we might be warranted to. I find it honestly surprising that a critic
as refined as George Steiner, for instance, would seem to take at
face value the assertion that Menard gave up “being” Cervantes
because it was “too easy”.
Oddities notwithstanding, towards the end something akin to
a bitter nihilism sets in: Menard “had resolved to be ahead of the
vanity which awaits man’s pains; he undertook a most complex
enterprise, which was futile from the get-go” (1996, p. 450)17.
17 [r]esolvió adelantarse a la vanidad que aguarda todas las fatigas del hombre; acometió una
empresa complejísima y de antemano fútil.
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This seems to shed new light on Menard’s supposed work: he was
aware of the ridicule of the task; it may reflect his bitterness against
the futility of his literary environment. His “invisible work” might
not be a truly serious enterprise, but a mock-project, resulting of
frustrated expectations of literary grandeur in a world devoted to
favor and competing adulation.
These aspects of the story—usually ignored by the translation-
centered criticism which fashioned it as a philosophical treatise
on hermeneutics, and ignored its eminently fictional character—
should blur our understanding of just how seriously one should
take Menard’s strange enterprise.
4. Conclusion
I have tried to demonstrate so far that Arrojo’s reading of
pmaq has limitations related to its level of textual justification,
its adaptation to a logocentric critique of language and to internal
contradictions of deconstruction itself. I should like to conclude by
demonstrating that the view on pmaq as being about translation is
not universal.
It was said earlier that Arrojo took her cue from George Steiner;
her aforementioned compliment to the short story—it “offers, in few
pages, one of the fullest, most brilliant commentaries ever written
on the mechanisms of language and its implications for a theory
of translation and of literature” (1986/2007, pp. 13-4) 18—echoes
a similar compliment paid by Steiner, with which he begins his
commentary on pmaq: “Arguably, ‘Pierre Menard, Author of the
Quijote’ (1939) is the most acute, most concentrated commentary
anyone has offered on the business of translation. What studies
of translation there are, including this book, could, in Borges’s
style, be termed a commentary on his commentary” (1975/1998, p.
18 [Pmaq] oferece, em suas poucas páginas, um dos comentários mais brilhantes e mais
completos que já se escreveu sobre os mecanismos da linguagem e suas implicações para
uma teoria da tradução e para uma teoria da literatura.
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73). Arrojo’s perception of a desire for “total interpretation, total
control over the text” on the part of Menard also echoes Steiner,
when he mentions “Pierre Menard’s […] task of total translation”
(1975/1998 p. 74). Finally, her three-part analysis is dictated not
only by the story’s structure, but also by Steiner’s commentary,
which begins by Menard’s bibliography (1975/1998, p. 73),
moving on to his “invisible work” (1975/1998, pp. 74-5). Arrojo,
therefore, seems to remain very close to Steiner in her opinion
concerning the importance of pmaq for translation theory.
In all likelihood, it was Steiner who first proposed this seemingly
lasting opinion, which still finds echoes beyond Arrojo’s most
recent work (2004, in which Steiner’s above cited compliment is
explicitly cited [p. 32]): see, for example, Kristal (2002), which
not only alludes to pmaq in its title, but cites Steiner’s above cited
compliment (p. xiii); see also Waisman (2005), which, once again,
praises pmaq by echoing Steiner’s praise (p. 13), and begins with
the self-same epigraph from “Las versiones homéricas” used by
Steiner in After Babel19.
Steiner’s statement that pmaq is a commentary on the task of
the translator does not seem to have had universal acceptance,
however. I find at least one important counter-example: in 1996,
Anne-Marie Louis published an article on Borges and translation, in
which she explicitly cites Steiner and his compliment to pmaq. Her
criticism of Steiner, however, is very clear: “After Babel: Aspects
of Language and Translation by George Steiner takes up the first
sentence from ‘Las versions homéricas’ among its epigraphs.
Meanwhile, After Babel makes *no reference to Borges’ writings
on translation, not even an allusion to the one which supplied it
with an epigraph” (1996, pp. 289-90, *emphasis added)20. Louis
19 I thank Marc Charron for bringing Waisman’s book to my attention.
20 After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation de George Steiner […] reprend la
première phrase de « Las versiones homéricas » parmi lés épigraphes […]. Cependant, After
Babel ne contient aucune référence aux écrits de Borges sur la traduction, même pas une
allusion au texte d’où est extraite l’épigraphe.
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centers her analysis around “Las versiones homéricas” and “Los
traductores de las 1001 noches”, disregarding “Las dos maneras de
traducir”. (Waisman will dedicate separate chapters of his book
to each of these, which he calls Borges’ main pieces on translation
[2005 p. 12]. His commentary on pmaq will take place in a chapter
called “Writing as translation”, in which other texts by Borges are
also discussed [pp. 97-140, esp. pp. 107-24].) It seems Louis does
not consider pmaq as a text on translation.
My own analysis is, therefore, inscribed in what seems now to be
a minor trend in the reception of pmaq in its relation to translation,
which counter Steiner’s rather strong and unproven claim, as well
as its impact on subsequent criticism. It is undeniable that, in truly
borgesian fashion, pmaq is now a story about translation, after
having been so abundantly read, but I find it reasonable that we
should call the origins of such interpretation into question; it may
now be undesirable to disprove it altogether, but I would argue for
a less strong, more cautious version thereof.
Referências
ARROJO, Rosemary. Tradução, desconstrução e psicanálise. Rio de Janeiro:
Imago, 1993.
ARROJO, Rosemay. Compreender x interpretar e a questão da tradução. In:
arrojo, Rosemay (org.). O Signo desconstruído: implicações para a tradução,
a leitura e o ensino, 2.ed. Campinas: Pontes, 2003.
ARROJO, Rosemay. Oficina de tradução: a teoria na prática, 5. ed. São Paulo:
Ática, 2007.
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ARROJO, Rosemay. Translation, Transference, and the Attraction to Otherness:
Borges, Menard, Whitman. In: Diacritics vol.34 n.030/4, Literary into Cultural
Translation. Outono-inverno, 2004. pp. 31-53.
BORGES, Jorge Luis. Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote. In: Obras completas I:
1923-1949, 5.ed. Barcelona: Emecé, 1996. pp. 444-50.
BRITTO, Paulo Henriques. Desconstruir pra quê? In: Cadernos de tradução
vol.02 n.08. Florianópolis, 2001. pp. 41-50.
BÜHLER, Alex. Translation as interpretation. In: RiccaRdi, Alessandra (ed.).
Translation Studies: Perspectives on an Emerging Discipline. Cambridge
University Press, 2002. pp. 56-74.
ECO, Umberto. Interpretar não é traduzir. In: Quase a mesma coisa: experiências
de tradução. Tradução de Eliana Aguiar. Rio de Janeiro & São Paulo: Record,
2007. pp. 265-98.
GENTLZER, Edwin. Contemporary Translation Theories, 2.ed.rev. Clevedon,
Buffalo, Toronto, Sydney: Multilingual Matters, 2001.
KRISTAL, Efraín. Invisible work: Borges and translation. Nashville:
Vanderbilt University Press, 2002.
LOUIS, Anne-Marie. La traduction selon Jorge Luis Borges. In: Poétique n.107.
Paris: Seuil, set/1996, pp. 289-300.
PYM, Anthony. Exploring Translation Theories. Londres & Nova Iorque:
Routledge, 2010.
ROUND, Nicholas. Translation and its Metaphors: the (N+1) wise men and the
elephant. In: Skase Journal of Translation and Interpretation vol.01 n.01.
The Slovak Association for the Study of English & University Library of Prešov
University, 2005. pp. 47-59. Available at http://www.skase.sk/Volumes/JTI01/
doc_pdf/05.pdf.
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STEINER, George. After Babel: Aspects of Language & Translation, 3.ed.
Oxford University Press, 1998. (1.ed.1975.)
WAISMAN, Sergio. Borges y la traducción. Tradução de Marcelo Cohen.
Buenos Aires: Adriana Hidalgo, 2005.
Recebido em: 19/12/2016
Aceito em: 29/03/2017
Publicado em maio de 2017
