"Unoriginal sin" (Oscar Wilde and plagiarism)

"My God, James, I wish I'd said that!"
-- Oscar Wilde

"You will, Oscar, you will."
-- James Whistler

Really, though, my heart can't help but sink at reading this. Not even Wilde -- especially not Wilde -- ought to have license to plagiarise.

Good thing he hasn't posted here.

He may or would have been hung out to dry in the Internet age for the plagiarism, but wouldn't suffer in jail for what he suffered for. In his time, hung out to dry for the one, and given a pass on the other, where the reverse would be the case today. Interesting reversal. Oscar, Oscar, Oscar.

too true

talk about your reversals--s6

Godammit. We are all patchworks of each other. When the exact words are stolen, that's a blasphemy I spit on merrily. But to assimilate and spit forth your own words rising from the thoughts of others...that's called life. Who doesn't find a new friend intriguing and lovely and suddenly finds themselves becoming like this friend...using this friend's thoughts as his own...thinking like the friend...saying something and finding themselves having that creepy all over feeling like they were just somebody else. Maybe, by God, he stood on the heads of his peers...but he put it to words. People spill their wise and other people gulp it up. We stand on each other's shoulders. We only learn by hearing. We formulate our own versions and mould ideas into our own cake pan and voila...we have a new cake. Wilde lived...that's how he got his ideas, that's how he wrote. He picked up the vibes of society of spit them into his work. If the big outside read his work and thought, 'My God, but that's utterly original and curiously interesting' Well those poor bastards weren't in the upper eschelon of drunken society in which Wilde surrounded himself. If his friends and peers were too dumn to scream to the masses, why the hell should he remain quiet. Ideas aren't words. Ideas are energy. Wilde put his energy into pretty words. Who gives a crapassed shit whose head he stood on to do it.

end of rant.

Maybe, by God, he stood on the heads of his peers...but he put it to words. People spill their wise and other people gulp it up. We stand on each other's shoulders. We only learn by hearing. We formulate our own versions and mould ideas into our own cake pan and voila...we have a new cake. Wilde lived...that's how he got his ideas, that's how he wrote....




Heh, just kidding.
Actually I agree with KTC that we are an amalgamation of our experiences and each person we interact with is an experience. Be that as it may, paraphrasing without attribution is a dangerous line... I am not a Wilde afficianado (sp?) so that is more of a general statement, than in reference to his specific works.

"Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation." - Wilde

"He makes this patchwork from other people's ideas and, at the end of the day, I think this patchwork is original: if you look at the individual squares, they're not original, but the big picture is." - Mendelssohn


This isn't a crime IMO. Almost all art does this in one form or another.

Anyone else get the feeling that Whistler may have been a bit jealous?

Er, it's not just standing on heads, according to the article.

"At times the plagiarism is word-for-word, but more often it's very heavy-handed paraphrasing passed off as his own," says Mendelssohn. "He can't bring himself to use quotation marks."

Click to expand...

The allegation of literary theft is long-standing and one of which Wilde was fully aware. "Of course I plagiarise," he told Max Beerbohm, the writer and caricaturist. "It is the privilege of the appreciative man."

Click to expand...

Of course we're all influenced by our experiences and our forebears. But that doesn't cover the entire argument here.

Um. Did I forget that damn little smiley thing at the end of my post again?

(-;

Oh, that!

Does that mean one can love Oscar again, or does one still hate him?

I always loved Oscar. And I basically stand by what I said, even though I said it tongue in cheek. I dig the man...

and not De La Renta.

Now now. Oscar de la Renta is a lovely guy. Oscar the Grouch also has his moments.

This doesn't change my love for Wilde as a character and social observer, but it does dent my trust as a reader. Which is one of the crummy little side effects of plagiarism, as we here know. Picking up quite a few dents lately.

I always thought Oscar de la Renta smelled like cheap wine.

That's Oscar the Grouch. I mean, really, the stuff in his trash can . . .

Oh Christ...have I mixed up my Oscars again! I keep doing that.

Odd, no one mentioned Oscar Madison.

www.donaldmichaelplatt.com

He is the non-cartoon Grouch Oscar...I thought that was a given?

And then there's the Academy Award Oscar, who never says much but has also been known to smell like cheap wine.

touche.

poetinahat said:

"My God, James, I wish I'd said that!"
-- Oscar Wilde

"You will, Oscar, you will."
-- James Whistler

Click to expand...

You can very easily substitute Ernie Hemingway's name for Oscar's in this little scene. (And James Joyce's instead of Whistler's.) He often took other people's experiences and quotes and wrote them as his own.