I’m an entrepreneurial twenty three year old, part of the team at we are social, a conversation agency based in London.
On this site, I blog mainly about communication, design, technology and the arts, and their impact on society. I also write the Skype blog.
“The ethics of plagiarism have turned into the narcissism of small differences. Because journalism cannot own up to its heavily derivative nature, it must enforce originality on the level of the sentence.”
Ben Casnocha points to an article in the New York Times about plagiarism, and Ian McEwan in particular, which quotes Malcom Gladwell’s comments on the matter:
“The ethics of plagiarism have turned into the narcissism of small differences. Because journalism cannot own up to its heavily derivative nature, it must enforce originality on the level of the sentence.”
The article suggests that we’re becoming more aware of and upset by plagiarism, and it points to the advances in self promotion and self publishing which have swept the world over the last few years. An almost entrepreneurial desire to maximally exploit ones own publishing power means that when we see people making money from what we perceive to be the work of others, we feel the need to express a vitriolic disgust.
It’s true that the opportunities for self commercialisation, as the article puts it, have increased. Whether one chooses to blog, or to post videos on YouTube, or whatever, it’s easy to publish and own content. And it doesn’t seem unnatural to want to protect that content, and have some control over the way it’s used — after all, that’s what the Creative Commons project is all about.
At the same time, though, I’d be interested to find out whether the opportunities for influence, and therefore unconscious inspiration, have grown in number.
My hypothesis is this, taking the literary world as an example: ten years ago, people reading newspapers, magazines and books probably read in greater volume from a smaller number of authors than someone today, who’s not only faced with the same array of print publications but millions of blogs and websites. As a result, those opportunities for unconscious inspiration have grown in number, and so it’s becoming increasingly hard to be individual at the sentence level, as demanded by Gladwell’s narcissists.
Whether that supposition is correct or not I don’t know, but I wonder whether those people offended by Ian McEwan’s writing are similarly horrified by Shakespeare’s borrowing. How do we define the boundary between inspiration and theft?
art, Blog, blogging, books, Creative Commons, ethics, forgery, Ian McEwan, inspiration, journalism, literature, magazines, Malcom Gladwell, newspapers, plagiarism, self expression, self promotion, self publishing, Shakespeare, theft, YouTube
I’m an entrepreneurial twenty three year old, part of the team at we are social, a conversation agency based in London.
On this site, I blog mainly about communication, design, technology and the arts, and their impact on society. I also write the Skype blog.
One of those frequently misunderstood problems with Shakespeare is his propensity to lift material from other people - nowadays we would call it plagiarism.
One of the most fascinating, I think, is the meeting of Faustus and Helen:
FAUSTUS. Was this the face that launch\’d a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium–
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.–
[Kisses her.]
Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies!–
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.
Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena.
I will be Paris, and for love of thee,
Instead of Troy, shall Wertenberg be sack\’d;
And I will combat with weak Menelaus,
And wear thy colours on my plumed crest;
Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel,
And then return to Helen for a kiss.
O, thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars;
Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter
When he appear\’d to hapless Semele;
More lovely than the monarch of the sky
In wanton Arethusa\’s azur\’d arms;
And none but thou shalt be my paramour!
[Exeunt.]
Now, do you remember Romeo seeing Juliet for the first time?
Something like
Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright.
Do I smell the smoke of Jupiter in this?
And what are we to make of the stage action - Kiss and Kiss again?
ROMEO If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
JULIET Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims\’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers\’ kiss.
ROMEO Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
JULIET Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
ROMEO O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
JULIET Saints do not move, though grant for prayers\’ sake.
ROMEO Then move not, while my prayer\’s effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.
JULIET Then have my lips the sin that they have took.
ROMEO Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
Give me my sin again.
Now, if that isn\’t a direct copy of the Faustus scene, I am a Dutchman.
What is amazing is the way this connection is frequenltly ignored.
Why has Shakespeare chosen to lift a scene where a man very close to death and on his way to hell is instantly struck by a beautiful illusion and plays a word game of passing sins and souls in kisses?
He knew his audience - and they knew Marlow\’s play.
Modern interpretations of the Shakespeare scene all seem to focus on the beauty of the young lovers, the magnificent of the sentiments, the way Romeo has suddenly matured into a warm feeling adult (hours before he was an unfeeling teenager).
Put it next to Marlow though and a rather darker image emerges - a fool heading for death and hell, blinded by the devil\’s false beauty.
And because of the mindset, it is beautiful, interpreters tend to ignore the blasphemy too. Romeo, in order to impress Juliet, uses religious images - compares himself to a pilgrim and links prayer to his base wish for her body.
That would not go down well with the strongly held religous views of Shakespeare\’s audience.