ABUSE OR ART?

There is more on Plagiarism and Creativity: see – https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2022/06/plagiarism-creativity.html.

After John Hughes’ piece, I am not a plagiarist - and here’s why was published – see: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jun/16/john-hughes-i-am-not-a-plagiarist-and-heres-why - the publisher Upswell, Terri-ann White, replied expressing her astonishment, surprise, and disappointment: see - https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jun/17/trust-breached-publisher-distances-herself-from-author-john-hughes-amid-plagiarism-claims?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other. Just what is happening here? She responded politely with a Much appreciated, Spence after the text forwarded to The Guardian had been sent to her, so she knows the context of the critique - the Aldington ‘assassination’ - as does The Guardian; (that is assuming that both recipients had bothered to read the twenty pages of the Aldington lecture and took time to consider matters rationally and objectively): but is the publicity about plagiarism, and the dislike of this nasty word, so powerfully potent in stimulating a passionately wild hatred that any argument to explain the situation makes no difference; that folk just have to give in and join the protesting chorus, and express ‘sincere’ disappointment and disgust? Are Australians so lightheaded, pig-headed, so lacking in logical thought and intellectual interest and rigour that they just turn up on mass and bash the ‘plagiarist’ as they once did ‘poofters’?

It is a terrible situation when people want to discredit one using a technique adopted by heroes of the twentieth century who, with the simple logic of similitude and consistency, should be deposed, stripped of their glory by those now expressing their repugnance for such strategies from their moral high ground. “Oh! No! This will never be allowed to happen in Australia!” seems to be the latent cry. It is just too easy for folk to squeal out as a crowd and dismiss the reasoned logic of thought as a madman’s rhetoric, as if the logic might be: ‘Ten thousand rabbits can’t be wrong!’ Here quantity reigns. Sadly it is the classic Aussie cringe: Eliot and Pound are lauded foreigners - geniuses; an Australian could never be assumed to be as good as them, or be allowed the luxury of a similar technique that is ‘artful art’ for them, ‘plagiarism’ for our man who is blamed and shamed; humiliated; ignored – “the cheat!”

Only Aldington seems to have had the 'balls,' (and the special insights and knowledge), to speak up, making, so it would appear, the task for the Australian’s who idolize the ‘masters,’ that of discrediting Aldington. Maybe they should try the ‘poofter,’ or ‘lower class twit’ claim; or that ‘his mother was a . . . ’ argument, and use these on the ‘shameful’ Hughes too, who dared to create a verbal collage. If no one is interested in reading the whole of the Aldington lecture of 1939, (“Come on. It’s all just old crap!”), then just one paragraph might get the idea of Pound’s collage technique of writing across, a method that is analysed as a respectful homage created by a poetic genius, not just the lazy cheating of some local bloke - the ‘ideas thief.’ Aldington writes:

This limits our search for Pound, as an original poet, to the single volume of collected short poems from which we have already deducted Cathay. And when we examine these poems attentively, what do we discover but the significant fact that a considerable number are translations or close adaptations of other poems. There are eight from Heine and six from the Greek anthology, while others are translated from Charles d’Orleans, Bertrand de Born, Propertius, du Bellay, Leopardi, the anonymous Seafarer, and so forth. Moreover, a much larger group of these poems is paraphrased or imitated from or based on the poems of other writers without acknowledgement or, at best, with only slight or indirect hints of derivation. On running over the book again I find this list of poets imitated: W.B. Yeats, Cino da Pistoia, Robert Browning, Bertrand de Born, Francois Villon, Dante, Piere Vidal, Arnaut de Marvoil, A.E. Housman, Catullus, Sappho, Albert Samain, Ibycus, Theophile Gautier, Walt Whitman, several Chinese Poets, Sumer is i-cumen in, Voltaire, mediaeval poets of Provence, numerous modern French Symbolistes, Ronsard and Edmund Waller.

The sheer, insulting hypocrisy displayed by those who cry out “plagiarism” when it is read in the media, is typical of the careless, cringing Australian mind that is blinded by accents and imports that must always be better than anyone or anything Aussie. The shame is on those who promote this approach that sees even quality Australian research having to take itself overseas to become real and respected. Gosh, in Australia, even local jam is never as good as that imported from ‘the old country,’ or even romantic Romania, or nearby New Zealand!

We need to grow up! This attitude is the same as that which has the professionals, e.g. architects, labelled as just ‘princely, pricey performers,’ an indulgent waste of time and money. “Anyone can design a house; you can get a swimming pool for the money the professional wants as fees.” The amateur ‘Everyman’ reigns, knowing more about everything than anyone, even the interpretation of plagiarism – “Ya can see the match! Clear as crystal!” - and there are lots of ‘Everymen,’ so many that we get ‘crowd-funded’ responses that are easily whipped up by the media that fills its pages with ‘meaningful’ stories about “Why I . . .”: Why I like small penises; Why his penis is too big; Why I paint my nails black; Why I don't like my wife; Why I went berserk with my mental problem; Why I like my vagina now; Why I love my dog's best friend; etc. The media would, of course, know all about ‘plagiarism’ too - yes, know that Aldington had ‘an axe to grind’ because he was never as famous as Pound and Eliot. It is really a shocking state of affairs: run the programme; discover the matches; publish ‘plagiarism’ - "Ya cheating bastards!"

It is truly sad to hear the publisher join the ranks and declare "Trust breached," even after receiving a link to the Aldington lecture. Imagine a novel with footnotes. The author would be crucified as a ‘wanker’ trying to prove how clever s/he was; or be told how boring s/he was, by adding so many distractions to disturb the reader’s enjoyment. Either way, there would be a scathing response. The situation about the use and ownership of language could get to such an extreme situation that even every the might soon have to carry an accreditation, ‘as used by ......’ etc. There are few limits to crowd complaints that carry a momentum and irrational logic of their own.

We need far better criticism than this outrageous mass response. We should read more of Aldington and feel embarrassed, shamed by the parochial outbursts. The problem is that shame requires awareness; it is awareness that is missing in these assessments. We could learn from Aldington:

Eliot is far too clever in his dry calculating way ever to be trivial with Pound’s almost endearing spontaneity of silliness. He is far too accomplished a trick-writer. As a rule, when he introduces his urban trivialities, as he so frequently does, he is careful to place them in immediate contrast with some would-be profound remark, a trick he learned from one of his early admirations in verse, Jules Laforgue.

The next fragment starts off with a fine piece of preciosity:

“The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf

Clutch and sink into the wet bank.”

I like that – it is a genuine piece of observation, not very original, to be sure, but true of the Thames backwater in autumn. But then within a few lines we have unacknowledged quotations and misquotations from Edmund Spenser (thrice repeated), the Bible, Shakespeare, and Paul Verlaine.

. . .

I would not have you think that the unacknowledged quotation in modern poems should be entirely avoided, though I think Eliot’s abuse of it has now made avoidance essential.

. . .

But it is surely an abuse of public credulity when we find “critics” gravely admiring the profound and esoteric significance of a whole page of Murder in the Cathedral which is lifted without quotation marks from the Sherlock Holmes detective story, The Musgrave Ritual. (What on earth has this to do with Becket unless as a modern “ducdame”?) But when the unacknowledged quotation is abused as often as it is by Eliot it becomes a monotonous and at length annoying trick. An original writer should be able to express his thoughts in his own words and not always have to filch from his predecessors.

The challenge is to assess the intent, not to squeal at the matches with immediate, ill-considered, infectious outrage. Is it an ‘abuse’ or an ‘art’? Is it a subtle homage, or merely stealing other’s words to make yours look better? Simply highlighting the matches is not enough. We need far more careful thought and analysis; and more respect too. One has to remember that words and languages are communal matters; that the idea of ownership becomes perplexing when we share and use these concepts that hold meaning just because we all agree and understand, and agree to understand, with sharing being the heart of the matter, the core of meaning. If we are going to demand copyright on every expression and concept, then we will be defining our own separate worlds, words, and meanings, structuring and ensuring only separation and isolation. We need to ponder the limits in these matters.

Here one thinks of Carmina Gadelica Hymns and Incantations collected by Alexander Carmichael. These hymns and incantations were all once oral exultations, passed on through language, held in memory, and shared. It is almost inconceivable to us today that this could have been so. This rich volume highlights Coomaraswamy’s ideas expressed in The Bugbear of Literacy. Perhaps special claims to words is yet another bugbear of literacy: MY words are NOT YOUR words? We need to give the matter much more thought, because these hymns and incantations have only come down to us from their Gaelic origins because your words became mine.

. . .

The Guardian is persevering with its position, and has now involved local 'expert's' - see: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jun/18/literary-experts-find-john-hughes-plagiarism-defence-unconvincing?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other. In spite of having the Aldington text, it seems that The Guardian is not interested in accepting the challenge to openly criticize Pound and Eliot; nor is it brave enough to publish the Aldington critique even though Hughes uses the example of Eliot's technique as his defence. It looks like The Guardian is insisting on holding its position; that it will not be wrong.

It is clear that the Aldington critique can apply to Hughes as well; that it would have been better for Hughes to have had a well-considered position on his strategy rather than use the latent memory idea as a first excuse: but one cannot criticize Hughes without taking on Pound and Eliot too. This is clear, but no one apparently wants to, not even the 'experts. Cringe!

The impact of the use of another's words can be best seen in the extreme. In https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2011/02/chance-and-design.html, just as an experiment, all the poems in an edition of Quadrant were cut up and randomly pasted. The astonishment was that the 'new poem' made some sort of sense. Imagine the value of the considered use of another's words.

There is true meaning and enrichment for art here; using another's words may not just be plagiarism. As Hughes noted, quoting Eliot: “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.”

If folk are bold enough to criticize Hughes, then they must take Eliot down with him: see - https://lithub.com/in-response-to-people-noticing-his-very-obvious-plagiarism-john-hughes-says-actually-no/

P.S. 

The 'intellectual' Quadrant couldn't care less. It seems to be engrossed in supporting mates' positions with a 'masonic' rigour: but this is Australia. Now I have to note that the idea of describing a situation as 'masonic' was copied from an architectural student's description of the tutoring system at the Bartlett School: see - https://www.dezeen.com/tag/bartlett/ It seems to be the situation in most schools of architecture.