ABSTRACT
Jorge Luis Borges inaugurated his writing career at the tender age of nine with the publication of a Spanish translation of Oscar Wilde's "The Happy Prince" in El Pais, a Buenos Aires newspaper. It has been widely recognized that Borges viewed translation as an intrinsically performative textual activity, that is, as a form of rewriting that is not in any sense neutral or secondary to the original. Pierre Menard's "methods" for reproducing Don Quixote could be viewed as an ironic criticism of the call for faithfulness and invisibility typically associated with traditional translation theories and practices Borges's interest in avoiding issues associated with rivalry and influence could also help to explain Pierre Menard's ambivalent feelings towards Cervantes and his Quixote. Pierre Menard's relationship with Cervantes, the workings of transference and the practice of translation underwrite Borges's life-long engagement with Whitman's poetry and literary persona.
