The Valve - A Literary Organ | Intention, plagiarism, and allusion

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Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Intention, plagiarism, and allusion

Posted by Bill Benzon on 06/13/07 at 11:47 AM

Over at the Language Log Geoffry Pullum is arguing that intention makes the difference between plagiarism and allusion: “It’s plagiarism if you copy someone’s writing and you don’t want it to be noticed that you were copying; it’s allusion if you do exactly the same but you do want it to be noticed.” He goes on to assert of a recent allusion of his own:

If I had hoped Mr McIntyre would not identify the source of my very funny metaphor and would think me responsible for its brilliantly humorous simile, I would not be a brilliantly humorous writer, I would be a dumb and contemptible plagiarist. And if I had thought he would spot the quotation but I was wrong and he did not, I would be in an awkward spot for two reasons: (i) I would have gratuitously insulted someone I didn’t even know, and (ii) I would have used someone else’s clever humor without admitting it or citing the source, and would thus have put myself in danger of being fingered later as a plagiarist.

Comments

I don’t know how many authors have thought they were making allusions and ended up accused of plagiarism. The reverse (inverse?) has often happened in literary history. An author uses a line or a thought or a joke or a whole theme whose source is familiar to the readers of his era but new to us through ignorance or amnesia. Thus various authors become retroactively original through no fault of their own. An entire theory of the role of genius and the productive imagination in literary history could be built on the basis of this mechanism. In fact, it has been.

By Jim Harrison on 06/13/07 at 05:38 PM | Permanent link to this comment

Doesn’t acknowledgement makes the difference between plagiarism and quotation; and wasn’t that was a loose quotation rather than an allusion?

By on 06/13/07 at 07:35 PM | Permanent link to this comment

I used “love that dare not speak its name” in an academic article and the journal’s copy-editor insisted it go in quotes. Still, they didn’t ask for a full cite.

By on 06/13/07 at 09:27 PM | Permanent link to this comment

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

By Kip Manley on 06/14/07 at 11:12 AM | Permanent link to this comment

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Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Intention, plagiarism, and allusion

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