Thread: A Kinder Sort Of Plagiarism

In retrospect, I think of all the cases of plagiarism that have been uncovered, and I think some of these were clearly cases of cryptomnesia, when a writer is so impressed by a plot of a story that later on he subconsciously and unintentionally produces a piece of writing that has the unmistakable resemblance to the original plot.

The best and the most visible case of the cryptomnesia happened to Nabokov, whose Lolita turns out to be a very close rewrite of the book by the same name written by a German and published in the 1916 Berlin, where Nabokov did live. The controversy is well-discussed in these articles:

http://www.onthemedia.org/transcript...05_lolita.html

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/ent..._entertainment

Originally Posted by teflon

In retrospect, I think of all the cases of plagiarism that have been uncovered, and I think some of these were clearly cases of cryptomnesia, when a writer is so impressed by a plot of a story that later on he subconsciously and unintentionally produces a piece of writing that has the unmistakable resemblance to the original plot.

The best and the most visible case of the cryptomnesia happened to Nabokov, whose Lolita turns out to be a very close rewrite of the book by the same name written by a German and published in the 1916 Berlin, where Nabokov did live. The controversy is well-discussed in these articles:

http://www.onthemedia.org/transcript...05_lolita.html

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/ent..._entertainment

Plagiarism is a social construct perpetuated by dominant ideological beliefs of a capitalist class that emphasizes "intellectual property." In my opinion, plagiarism, in most cases, ceases to exist. All ideas are constructions upon earlier ideas; a constant literary development from one instance to the next. There is nothing that can be classified as our "own", infact, the emphasis placed on the "original" idea incites a reluctance in most writers to build upon an ever-developing literary structure. The ideas of plagiarism and originality become destructive to a societal literary fabric.

Sounds generalistic, and uniquely your own, to the point of being your own intellectual property. Or is it? It does also remind me of the Marx-Engels-Lenin rhetoric.

This rhetoric, though, is famous for having killed creativity in the countries which have tried to achieve that paradise.