This reminds me of the wonderful short story by Jorge Luis Borges, “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”. In the story, the character attempts to authentically rewrite Cervantes’ Don Quixote — not by simply copying the known text, not even by attempting to re-live Cervantes’ life and spontaneously writing the novel just as Cervantes did, but by somehow living his own 20th century life and happening onto writing a novel that is word for word identical to Don Quixote. It’s a marvelous, impossible premise which speaks to our fantasies of creativity and fetishization of original artifacts.
“Those who have insinuated that Menard devoted his life to writing a contemporary Quixote besmirch his illustrious memory. Pierre did not want to compose another Quixote, which is surely easy enough — he wanted to compose the Quixote. Nor, surely, need one be obliged to note that his goal was never a mechanical transcription of the original; he had no intention of copying it. His admirable ambition was to produce a number of pages which coincided — word for word and line for line — with those of Miguel de Cervantes.”
The story has some really funny sections where Borges compares a passage by Cervantes with an (identical) passage by Menard, comparing their style and meaning (which are not the same!). It's just fantastic.
This makes me think of Terry Gilligam's recent film, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018), which spirals recursively into a retelling of a retelling of a retelling of a ... of Don Quixote. A mind bending film - 30 years in the making! - shame it's plagued by rights issues which prevent its general release. If it screens in a film festival near you, go see it!
I am so happy I decided to stumble into the comments section for this article. Your contribution of this short story by Borges is almost sublime in its essential similarity to the article of OP. I've already been a fan of Borges, but I had never heard of this piece of his before. It has positively tickled all the right literary fancies for me. Thanks much for the comment, as the story was a pleasant accoutrement to my lunch!
Borges is amazing! I just recently finished reading "Fictions" (a collection of short stories) and was blown away by all the references and topics he manages to cover in sometimes just a few pages. Sometimes I kept googling authors, philosophical concepts, etc. every few lines while reading.
“Those who have insinuated that Menard devoted his life to writing a contemporary Quixote besmirch his illustrious memory. Pierre did not want to compose another Quixote, which is surely easy enough — he wanted to compose the Quixote. Nor, surely, need one be obliged to note that his goal was never a mechanical transcription of the original; he had no intention of copying it. His admirable ambition was to produce a number of pages which coincided — word for word and line for line — with those of Miguel de Cervantes.”
Here’s a PDF of an English translation:
http://hispanlit.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/files/2011/06/Borges-P...
The story has some really funny sections where Borges compares a passage by Cervantes with an (identical) passage by Menard, comparing their style and meaning (which are not the same!). It's just fantastic.