Quote:
Originally Posted by Susan McLean
Surely, context is relevant. In a culture that values the appropriation and reworking of previous texts, doing so is expected and not reviled. Our current culture tends to put the focus on what is different from the previous works, not on what is adapted from them, so appropriation of texts is considered a bad thing, except in a few limited areas (such as musical "sampling" of songs). When everyone knows the original that is being borrowed from, to borrow from it is an allusion. When no one knows the source material, taking it looks like stealing.
Susan
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The most one can say is that — like pornography, blasphemy, polygamy, flag-burning, condoms, Nickelback concerts or reality TV — it may offend people's sensibilities. But the mere narrow-mindedness of the general or literary culture, is not — or should not be — a yardstick for what constitutes ethical behavior. People disapprove of all kinds of stuff. But accusing someone of behavior that is almost tantamount to a crime is something else. It may seem beyond the pale to people whose perspective of literary behavior doesn't go beyond the pale of modern Europeanate literature. But the consensus of the ignorant is only that. If a poet is guilty of nothing more heinous than having failed to humor a public ignorant of how big the literary world is, then I aggressively do not care. At most it is a minor nuisance, like publicly disrobing in a culture where public nudity is taboo.
And literary verse isn't a big money biz like pop song. It's not like the poetry scene has massive amounts of cash floating around for plagiarists to horn in on. So I can't see whom this really hurts. It miffs people who see the plagiary as "getting away with something." But I can't see how uncertain paternity is anymore a moral failing in a text than in a person.
A sentiment boiling down to "How dare you not conform to our presumptions and expectations about acceptable poetic composition!?" is ironic when it comes from people who profess to prize originality, to set great store by doing one's own thing one's own way rather than aping others. You must be original, be unique, of course. But you must conform to
our idea of original and unique. Don't be deviant. I can't find it in me to take the logic of this outrage remotely seriously. The reasoning seems to collapse into absurdity and self-contradiction upon examination.
In any case, the mad-eyed plagiarism-bloodhound in question in this instance seems especially narrow. Weirdly so.