2024年5月16日发(作者：第霞雰)
1. Lead-in.
Take
a
minute
or
two to note the title and read the first paragraph. Then
,
in the spaces
provided
,
answer the following questions.
1)
What
is由e
article about?
2)
What attitude do you think the author will take towards copying today?
3)
What do you expect to read about in the next paragraphs?
What's Wrong with
Co
pying?
-Charges of plagiarism are flying in
theωorld
of books. Where does borrowing end and
thφbegin?
Though disputed
,
there is a
d玩Terence.
Everyone knows the feeling. In a timely flash
,
the perfect quip forms in the
mind and rolls onto the tongue. You deliver it to the table
,
and wait for the gasps
or guffaws. In the silence that follows a dry voice says instead
,
"Yes
,
1 read that
too."
Authors have to wait longer to find out that their words are not theirs alone.
critics ca
l1
such silent plunder
,
is common among But "unconscious
boηowing'as
writers
,
even the best of them. Perhaps because night-foraging by the imagination
quip
Ik
Wlp/
n.
something
c1
ever and amusing
e.g. lt 'was
OscωWilde
wh() made the famous quip
αhour
life mimicking art.
ing in a war
e.g. After the president fled the counlrv
,
the palace
Vωplu/1dered
hy soldiers
gu
tT
aw /gA'
f:J:/
/1.
laughter
e.g. They let out a
!i
iallf
!i
uffaw when
the飞•
/ooked
at
the guest list.
plunder
f'p队nd;:"l(r)/
v.
to steallarge amounts of money
forage
f'f:J:nd3fν.
to go around searching for food or
other supplies
e.g.ηle
children had been li
l'
in
!i
011
the streels. for-
agin
!i
for
scr.αps
and s/eeping
roU
!ih.
The
pigs户raKed
i
l1
Ihe
Voods户r
acor
l1
s.
or property from somewhere
,
especially while fight-
is so vital to literature
,
good writers react warily when
,
as now
,
charges of plagia-
rism fly.
Though naturally eager to protect their own published words
,
and not
above a malicious smile or two when others get caught
,
most authors recognize
that this is
boggy
ground. Between imitation and theft
,
between borrowing and
plagiarism
,
lies a wide
,
murky borderland.
Since proving plagiarism is hard
,
legal redress is normally an expensive dream.
The most that aggrieved authors can count on is to shame the wrongdoe
r.
But
shame means attention
,
and attentionbrings sales. Recently
,
Ben Okri
,
a Nigerian-
bom nov
eI
ist
,
claimed that Calixthe
Beya烛，
a French one
,
lifted whole chunks of
his 1991 Booker-winning novel
,
for her bestse
lI
er.
Pl
agiarism means copying delib-
erately the exact words.
His were English
,
hers French. Showing that a plundered
book is not the only source is also a defense.
on
the advice of lawyers
,
he has
dropped his case against her
,
and in effect
the
affairhas died.
The personal vendetta carries different risks
,
as Neal Bowers
,
a wronged
poet and
te~cher
at lowa State University
,
recou时s
in
Words for the Taking: The
Hunt for the Plagiarist.
On
e day
,
Mr. Bowers got a fax from Califomia of
a阳ge
from a poetry magazine containing
,
under the name of
Da
vid Jones
,
a sligh
t1
y
altered version of a poem he had written for
his配ad
father. W
Or
se
,
he
le缸ned
that
the purtoined verses had been successfuHy
pl部ed
in several other poetry maga-
mdki倒s
Im
:;,
'hS
:;,
s! a.
intended to hann
0
1'
upset other
Rossip
weeks ago.
people
e.g.月wlicious
cbunk
1可
n.
a large part or amount of something
e.g. a chunk oftexf
a .whSfanfÎal chllnk ofour projìts
Three
hOUI丁is
a
malici口us
look in his
e、"
He complained fhaf he'd
!J
een
r们'eivillg
mlllt
cious relephone
α1I1s.
quile a
ch川k
0
1(/
(扩IH'IIυ巾11‘可
boggy
I
'bogll
a.
soft and wet (ground)
e.g. a boggv pafch af rhe edge offhefield
刊
...
阳
Iv钮'det:;，/n.在situation
in which one person
0
1'
murky 'm3:krl
a.
dark and dirty or difficult to see
through
e.g. The river was
bro怜'n
and murky
C{斤er
fhe s
fO
nn.
,
group tries for a long time to
h缸m
another
pers∞;
alo吨violen.t
argument between two groups or people
fhe
e.g. He saw
himse扩们
viCfim of (/ personal ven-
detta heing
waged
/J"
his
pυlifical
enemies.
recOUD量的'kauntJν.伽1.)
出scribe
redress
In'dresl v.
tocorrect
sorr随thing也
orunfair
e.g.
Mυ川sfmη1αω11ωαgeι门罗'.poli汇ωficiαn.' αωndb矿川ο川川P川.'归Se
?
一仙h/(ω4川υJw们νcanwo仰m阳e阳F川nredressf肚heb阳a巾归lG阳ωIIce?
to tell someone a story or
a series of events
.e
.g. He recounfed his advenlflres since he had lefi
home.
puñoi自Ip缸'bmJ
v.
叫到grievedι1:;，'伊i:vd/
a.
hav如g
SIl
ffered as a reswt
of也e
ilI
egal actions of someone eJse
e.g. One aggrieved cusfomer complained fhar he still
had川'f
to obtain something without
permission
,
ofteR used humorously
lV
as using a pen thaf
l'
d purloined
j川m
e.g. II/f
(,
received fhe
!J
ook he had ordered several
office.
zines across the country. An outraged hunt began. Mr. Jones
,
he learned
,
had
plagiarized other poets. Some editors sympathized; others did oot bother even to
respond. Mr. Bowers became
,
on his own admission
,
obsessed. He lost friends.
But
in the end he found the plagiarist
,
through a lawyer
,
only to be offered $100 in
compensation
,
and a whining apology.
Copyright and self-defense are not the only protection for authors. Humble
readers are among their best police.
The border between theft and bOITowing is
also vigilantly patrolled by scholars. John
Frow
l,
a university professor in Australia
,
has charged Graham Swift
2
with pillaging William Faulkner
3
•
According to Mr.
Frow
,
La
st Orders
,
which won Mr. Swift last year's Booker prize
,
takes liberally
from the theme and the fictional devices
of
As
1
La
y Dying.
Its topic -
how people
dispose of the dead
一is
the same. Faulkner's book has a one-sentence chapter
,
a
chapter with
itemized points and different speaking voices in different chapters.
So does
La
st Orders.
That is not plagiarism
,
Mr. Frow argues
,
but "irnitation". Mr.
Swif
t'
s fault
,
he suggests
,
is not to have made an explicit nod to the grand old man
from Oxford
,
Mississippi.
But there speaks a professor. Novelists are not bound
by rules of doctoral
quotation.
Th
e charge by
Ri
chard Pipes that Orlando Figes pinched findings of his
without due mention has provoked a quarrel between these two well-known histo-
rians
of Russia. But theirs is not a row-over literary plagiarism.
Th
e allusions of
novelists and poets are different from acadernic citations. When T.S. Eliot
4
and
面Ezra
Pound
5
freighted their verse with learned liftings from across the planet
,
they
called it "collage". Eliot did at times give sources but was laughed at for
pretentiousness. In his
Cantos
,
Pound seldom bothered to mention whose fusty
trunk he was happily ransacking.
vigilantly /'v1d3
!l
anth/
adv.
in a watchful manner
e.g. Every mun who ob
.l'
erves vigifantly
lI
nd resol
l'
es
stωdtástly
grows
1I
11COIISCÎOllSly Î
I1I
O genÎus.
sociology
,
sciencefiction，ωld
w
lI
r
theoη.
itemize /'a
It
amal
zI
v.
to make a list and give details
about each thing on the list
e.g. We
asked.f斗}/"
1I
11
i1凹nized
bill. lislillg a
l/
our pl
lOl1
e
calls
1I1!
d
110
11'
1υIlg
they were.
pretentious /pn'tenJas/
a. (disapproving)
trying to
appear or sound more important or clever than you
are
,
especially in matters of
art
and literature
e.g. a prete
l1l
Îous
lIrtιnllc
The
!1
ovel deals
lV
ilh grand themes. but is never
heavy
0
1'
pretentÎO
Lf
S.
row-over
n.
a situation in which people disagree strongly
about important public matters
[=
controversy]
collage /b'la:31
n.
a picture made by sticking other
pictures. photographs. cloth etc. onto a surface
e.g. The
book
i
.l'
a strallge collage of
Iz
islory.
pretentiousness
/p口'tenJasms/
n.
fusty
I'fA
strl a.
old-fashioned in ideas and beliefs
e.g. Rupert
'.1
father belongs to
someρ1St}
old
gellllemw! '
c/
uh
Înμmdoll
IVhere they dO
Il
't al
10协lVomen
111.
Where
,
then
,
does honest allusion
,
which authors want readers to catch
,
stop
and sly thievery begin? Sarnuel
Fulle户，
an American film director
,
put it well when
he said
of admiring French new-wave film makers
,
homage." Questions of imitation
,
unflagged quotation and borrowing
,
unconscious
or not
,
lead straight to the middle of the bog. Between mortal pedantry and wet
indulgence
,
is there safe ground?
Intention has a lot to
do with i
t.
Poets
,
especially
,
are prone to unwitting
copying since verse has
mnemonic properties that prose does not possess. Thom
Gunn
7
,
reading poems of his in London two years ago said: "My greatest fear is
that
1'
11 discover or
,
worse
,
that someone else will point out to me -
stolen another man's words
,
thinking them my own."
Plagiarists
,
like forgers
,
have guilty intent
,
but of interestingly different kinds.
An infamous early 20th-century faker such as Hans van
Meegeren wanted his
paintings taken for Vermeer's8. A plagiarist
,
by contrast
,
tries to pass off another
writer's words as his own. Forgers sin against authenticity
,
plagiarists against
originality.
that
I'
ve
Th
ere are copying traditions in which originality and its cousin
,
diversity
,
are
not only not celebrated but positively frowned on. Sacred literature
,
with its frozen
,
canonical texts
,
is an obvious example. But originality and variety have always
been prized in western writing
,
burden that they are on authors. Copyright laws
date from the spread
of the printed book in the 16th century. But interest in author-
ship is ancien
t.
All writers hate Homer
,
because Homer said everything firs
t.
Martial
,
a Latin .poet and lewd gag-writer
,
likened his words to slaves
,
and an author who
had stolen them to a plagiarist
,
or abductor. Varro
,
a scholar and friend of Cicero
9
's
,
stripped the number of plays by Plautus from 130 to less than two dozen.
Most readers want a personal voice
,
hopefully one that belongs to someone
who has read
,
thought and imagined a 10
1.
People are maybe more knowing nowa-
allusion
/;,
'lu:3;)
n!
n.
something said or written that
mentions a subject
,
person etc.
in叫ldiωire创ctl忖y
e.g. Her
110γ'elsαre packed川v归iIhli臼lerαη.
priate display of
1e
arning
e.g.
ηT'here 川Hωa川Jfα hυ川i川FI川川υ川t1州(扩lρ阳7凹Ce仇d扣h巾αa正川υlω川Jllli飞11川I
hi.
e!句eA飞'‘阳!g咐甲可1g严f4川川tωυ111S川l仙V飞、"
o{'speαkil1g.
lIlI
usiollS.
homage / 'horrudy
n.
(斤nl.)
something you do to show
respect for someone or something you think is im-
portant
e.g. On this occasi
O/
l
l
'e pll." hOlllilge
1υ
achie
l'
emenfS.
hilll
jór his
mnemonic /m'momkl
a.
aiding or designed to aid the
memory
e.g. (/
111川elllOI1Îc
derice
IIll1eJ1J(J
llic
rh飞111('.
pedantry
f'
ped:mtn/
n.
an ostentatious and inappro-
canonical
!k
;)'nomkU
a.
in the simplest mathematical
form
days about how certain "personal voices" come into being. Authors have editors;
they have co-authors and ghost-writers
,
not to mention mod
e1
s and literary god-
parents
to borrow from. But the idea -or ideal -of
p∞ros
and novels as unique
,
personal creations is still essential.
It is not hard to imagine two extreme sorts of writing where literary commu-
nication has broken down. One is so private
,
so personal and so original as to be
hermetic and uninte
l1igible.
Th
e other is so repetitive
,
mechanical and clichéd as to
be empty. Between them is a
p∞1
of shared references and allusions fed by writers
,
but also by readers. Plagiarists drain the pool; borrowers put back what they take
-though not necessarily in the same place.
Notes
1. John Frow (1948 -): an Australian professor and Chair of English Language and Literature at
theory，
the University of Melboume. As we][ as teaching and researching in areas as diverse as literary
theory and cultural
studie吕
C吕t
discoufse analysis and genre theory
,
Frow has a broad inter-
of
in contemporary literature and poetry
,
and in
question吕
intellectual property and the
commodification of c
ulture. He was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humani-
ties in 1997
2. Graham Swift
(1949一):
a well-known British author. Some of his works have been made into
films
,
incIuding
La
st Orders
which was a mildly controversial winner of the Booker Prize in
1996
,
owing to the superficial similarities in
pl侃to
William Faulkner's
As I
Lay岛ling.
3.
Wi
lliam Faulkner
(1
897-1962): the Nobel Prize-winning novelist and
sho民st。可writer
who is
acclaimed throughout the world as one of the twentieth
centu町's
greatest writers. From
The
Sound
and the Fury
in 1929 to
Go
Do抖'月，
Moses
in 1942
,
Faulkner accomplished in a little over
a decade more artistica
l1
y than most writers accomplish over a Iife
tÍ
me of writing.
It
is one of
th巳
more remarkable feats of American literature.
4. T.S. Eliot
(1
888 -1965): a poet
,
dramatist and literary critic. He received the Nobel
Pr
ize in
Literature in 1948. He wrote the poems
The Love Song of
J.
Alfred
Pn矿rock，
The Waste Land
,
The Holl
O
v Mell
,
Ash Wednesday
,
and
F嘻'，ourQuαω，.f印丁et只s只Y;
the plays
Murder
川int仇he
Cockt阳(//υIPαω，.[川1飞
Cαr仇h化￥edrαa11
and
The
moved
tωo
the
Unit忧ed
Kingdom
川in1914(创at
the age of 25). and became a
Briti血shl
subject in 1927 at
hermetic
1h
3:'me
tIkJ
a.
p_nr:p: Or 1nflll
P:
nr:p:
impe凹ious
to outside interfer-
e♂.g. Ht't凹'11f凹t'，川(叫'，d(吃υtht'h凹t'P川川1川1Il川t'Ifυic、忡IVO川Ild(~l扩仇fht'川111川wωSI们旷t'n芦、
2024年5月16日发(作者：第霞雰)
1. Lead-in.
Take
a
minute
or
two to note the title and read the first paragraph. Then
,
in the spaces
provided
,
answer the following questions.
1)
What
is由e
article about?
2)
What attitude do you think the author will take towards copying today?
3)
What do you expect to read about in the next paragraphs?
What's Wrong with
Co
pying?
-Charges of plagiarism are flying in
theωorld
of books. Where does borrowing end and
thφbegin?
Though disputed
,
there is a
d玩Terence.
Everyone knows the feeling. In a timely flash
,
the perfect quip forms in the
mind and rolls onto the tongue. You deliver it to the table
,
and wait for the gasps
or guffaws. In the silence that follows a dry voice says instead
,
"Yes
,
1 read that
too."
Authors have to wait longer to find out that their words are not theirs alone.
critics ca
l1
such silent plunder
,
is common among But "unconscious
boηowing'as
writers
,
even the best of them. Perhaps because night-foraging by the imagination
quip
Ik
Wlp/
n.
something
c1
ever and amusing
e.g. lt 'was
OscωWilde
wh() made the famous quip
αhour
life mimicking art.
ing in a war
e.g. After the president fled the counlrv
,
the palace
Vωplu/1dered
hy soldiers
gu
tT
aw /gA'
f:J:/
/1.
laughter
e.g. They let out a
!i
iallf
!i
uffaw when
the飞•
/ooked
at
the guest list.
plunder
f'p队nd;:"l(r)/
v.
to steallarge amounts of money
forage
f'f:J:nd3fν.
to go around searching for food or
other supplies
e.g.ηle
children had been li
l'
in
!i
011
the streels. for-
agin
!i
for
scr.αps
and s/eeping
roU
!ih.
The
pigs户raKed
i
l1
Ihe
Voods户r
acor
l1
s.
or property from somewhere
,
especially while fight-
is so vital to literature
,
good writers react warily when
,
as now
,
charges of plagia-
rism fly.
Though naturally eager to protect their own published words
,
and not
above a malicious smile or two when others get caught
,
most authors recognize
that this is
boggy
ground. Between imitation and theft
,
between borrowing and
plagiarism
,
lies a wide
,
murky borderland.
Since proving plagiarism is hard
,
legal redress is normally an expensive dream.
The most that aggrieved authors can count on is to shame the wrongdoe
r.
But
shame means attention
,
and attentionbrings sales. Recently
,
Ben Okri
,
a Nigerian-
bom nov
eI
ist
,
claimed that Calixthe
Beya烛，
a French one
,
lifted whole chunks of
his 1991 Booker-winning novel
,
for her bestse
lI
er.
Pl
agiarism means copying delib-
erately the exact words.
His were English
,
hers French. Showing that a plundered
book is not the only source is also a defense.
on
the advice of lawyers
,
he has
dropped his case against her
,
and in effect
the
affairhas died.
The personal vendetta carries different risks
,
as Neal Bowers
,
a wronged
poet and
te~cher
at lowa State University
,
recou时s
in
Words for the Taking: The
Hunt for the Plagiarist.
On
e day
,
Mr. Bowers got a fax from Califomia of
a阳ge
from a poetry magazine containing
,
under the name of
Da
vid Jones
,
a sligh
t1
y
altered version of a poem he had written for
his配ad
father. W
Or
se
,
he
le缸ned
that
the purtoined verses had been successfuHy
pl部ed
in several other poetry maga-
mdki倒s
Im
:;,
'hS
:;,
s! a.
intended to hann
0
1'
upset other
Rossip
weeks ago.
people
e.g.月wlicious
cbunk
1可
n.
a large part or amount of something
e.g. a chunk oftexf
a .whSfanfÎal chllnk ofour projìts
Three
hOUI丁is
a
malici口us
look in his
e、"
He complained fhaf he'd
!J
een
r们'eivillg
mlllt
cious relephone
α1I1s.
quile a
ch川k
0
1(/
(扩IH'IIυ巾11‘可
boggy
I
'bogll
a.
soft and wet (ground)
e.g. a boggv pafch af rhe edge offhefield
刊
...
阳
Iv钮'det:;，/n.在situation
in which one person
0
1'
murky 'm3:krl
a.
dark and dirty or difficult to see
through
e.g. The river was
bro怜'n
and murky
C{斤er
fhe s
fO
nn.
,
group tries for a long time to
h缸m
another
pers∞;
alo吨violen.t
argument between two groups or people
fhe
e.g. He saw
himse扩们
viCfim of (/ personal ven-
detta heing
waged
/J"
his
pυlifical
enemies.
recOUD量的'kauntJν.伽1.)
出scribe
redress
In'dresl v.
tocorrect
sorr随thing也
orunfair
e.g.
Mυ川sfmη1αω11ωαgeι门罗'.poli汇ωficiαn.' αωndb矿川ο川川P川.'归Se
?
一仙h/(ω4川υJw们νcanwo仰m阳e阳F川nredressf肚heb阳a巾归lG阳ωIIce?
to tell someone a story or
a series of events
.e
.g. He recounfed his advenlflres since he had lefi
home.
puñoi自Ip缸'bmJ
v.
叫到grievedι1:;，'伊i:vd/
a.
hav如g
SIl
ffered as a reswt
of也e
ilI
egal actions of someone eJse
e.g. One aggrieved cusfomer complained fhar he still
had川'f
to obtain something without
permission
,
ofteR used humorously
lV
as using a pen thaf
l'
d purloined
j川m
e.g. II/f
(,
received fhe
!J
ook he had ordered several
office.
zines across the country. An outraged hunt began. Mr. Jones
,
he learned
,
had
plagiarized other poets. Some editors sympathized; others did oot bother even to
respond. Mr. Bowers became
,
on his own admission
,
obsessed. He lost friends.
But
in the end he found the plagiarist
,
through a lawyer
,
only to be offered $100 in
compensation
,
and a whining apology.
Copyright and self-defense are not the only protection for authors. Humble
readers are among their best police.
The border between theft and bOITowing is
also vigilantly patrolled by scholars. John
Frow
l,
a university professor in Australia
,
has charged Graham Swift
2
with pillaging William Faulkner
3
•
According to Mr.
Frow
,
La
st Orders
,
which won Mr. Swift last year's Booker prize
,
takes liberally
from the theme and the fictional devices
of
As
1
La
y Dying.
Its topic -
how people
dispose of the dead
一is
the same. Faulkner's book has a one-sentence chapter
,
a
chapter with
itemized points and different speaking voices in different chapters.
So does
La
st Orders.
That is not plagiarism
,
Mr. Frow argues
,
but "irnitation". Mr.
Swif
t'
s fault
,
he suggests
,
is not to have made an explicit nod to the grand old man
from Oxford
,
Mississippi.
But there speaks a professor. Novelists are not bound
by rules of doctoral
quotation.
Th
e charge by
Ri
chard Pipes that Orlando Figes pinched findings of his
without due mention has provoked a quarrel between these two well-known histo-
rians
of Russia. But theirs is not a row-over literary plagiarism.
Th
e allusions of
novelists and poets are different from acadernic citations. When T.S. Eliot
4
and
面Ezra
Pound
5
freighted their verse with learned liftings from across the planet
,
they
called it "collage". Eliot did at times give sources but was laughed at for
pretentiousness. In his
Cantos
,
Pound seldom bothered to mention whose fusty
trunk he was happily ransacking.
vigilantly /'v1d3
!l
anth/
adv.
in a watchful manner
e.g. Every mun who ob
.l'
erves vigifantly
lI
nd resol
l'
es
stωdtástly
grows
1I
11COIISCÎOllSly Î
I1I
O genÎus.
sociology
,
sciencefiction，ωld
w
lI
r
theoη.
itemize /'a
It
amal
zI
v.
to make a list and give details
about each thing on the list
e.g. We
asked.f斗}/"
1I
11
i1凹nized
bill. lislillg a
l/
our pl
lOl1
e
calls
1I1!
d
110
11'
1υIlg
they were.
pretentious /pn'tenJas/
a. (disapproving)
trying to
appear or sound more important or clever than you
are
,
especially in matters of
art
and literature
e.g. a prete
l1l
Îous
lIrtιnllc
The
!1
ovel deals
lV
ilh grand themes. but is never
heavy
0
1'
pretentÎO
Lf
S.
row-over
n.
a situation in which people disagree strongly
about important public matters
[=
controversy]
collage /b'la:31
n.
a picture made by sticking other
pictures. photographs. cloth etc. onto a surface
e.g. The
book
i
.l'
a strallge collage of
Iz
islory.
pretentiousness
/p口'tenJasms/
n.
fusty
I'fA
strl a.
old-fashioned in ideas and beliefs
e.g. Rupert
'.1
father belongs to
someρ1St}
old
gellllemw! '
c/
uh
Înμmdoll
IVhere they dO
Il
't al
10协lVomen
111.
Where
,
then
,
does honest allusion
,
which authors want readers to catch
,
stop
and sly thievery begin? Sarnuel
Fulle户，
an American film director
,
put it well when
he said
of admiring French new-wave film makers
,
homage." Questions of imitation
,
unflagged quotation and borrowing
,
unconscious
or not
,
lead straight to the middle of the bog. Between mortal pedantry and wet
indulgence
,
is there safe ground?
Intention has a lot to
do with i
t.
Poets
,
especially
,
are prone to unwitting
copying since verse has
mnemonic properties that prose does not possess. Thom
Gunn
7
,
reading poems of his in London two years ago said: "My greatest fear is
that
1'
11 discover or
,
worse
,
that someone else will point out to me -
stolen another man's words
,
thinking them my own."
Plagiarists
,
like forgers
,
have guilty intent
,
but of interestingly different kinds.
An infamous early 20th-century faker such as Hans van
Meegeren wanted his
paintings taken for Vermeer's8. A plagiarist
,
by contrast
,
tries to pass off another
writer's words as his own. Forgers sin against authenticity
,
plagiarists against
originality.
that
I'
ve
Th
ere are copying traditions in which originality and its cousin
,
diversity
,
are
not only not celebrated but positively frowned on. Sacred literature
,
with its frozen
,
canonical texts
,
is an obvious example. But originality and variety have always
been prized in western writing
,
burden that they are on authors. Copyright laws
date from the spread
of the printed book in the 16th century. But interest in author-
ship is ancien
t.
All writers hate Homer
,
because Homer said everything firs
t.
Martial
,
a Latin .poet and lewd gag-writer
,
likened his words to slaves
,
and an author who
had stolen them to a plagiarist
,
or abductor. Varro
,
a scholar and friend of Cicero
9
's
,
stripped the number of plays by Plautus from 130 to less than two dozen.
Most readers want a personal voice
,
hopefully one that belongs to someone
who has read
,
thought and imagined a 10
1.
People are maybe more knowing nowa-
allusion
/;,
'lu:3;)
n!
n.
something said or written that
mentions a subject
,
person etc.
in叫ldiωire创ctl忖y
e.g. Her
110γ'elsαre packed川v归iIhli臼lerαη.
priate display of
1e
arning
e.g.
ηT'here 川Hωa川Jfα hυ川i川FI川川υ川t1州(扩lρ阳7凹Ce仇d扣h巾αa正川υlω川Jllli飞11川I
hi.
e!句eA飞'‘阳!g咐甲可1g严f4川川tωυ111S川l仙V飞、"
o{'speαkil1g.
lIlI
usiollS.
homage / 'horrudy
n.
(斤nl.)
something you do to show
respect for someone or something you think is im-
portant
e.g. On this occasi
O/
l
l
'e pll." hOlllilge
1υ
achie
l'
emenfS.
hilll
jór his
mnemonic /m'momkl
a.
aiding or designed to aid the
memory
e.g. (/
111川elllOI1Îc
derice
IIll1eJ1J(J
llic
rh飞111('.
pedantry
f'
ped:mtn/
n.
an ostentatious and inappro-
canonical
!k
;)'nomkU
a.
in the simplest mathematical
form
days about how certain "personal voices" come into being. Authors have editors;
they have co-authors and ghost-writers
,
not to mention mod
e1
s and literary god-
parents
to borrow from. But the idea -or ideal -of
p∞ros
and novels as unique
,
personal creations is still essential.
It is not hard to imagine two extreme sorts of writing where literary commu-
nication has broken down. One is so private
,
so personal and so original as to be
hermetic and uninte
l1igible.
Th
e other is so repetitive
,
mechanical and clichéd as to
be empty. Between them is a
p∞1
of shared references and allusions fed by writers
,
but also by readers. Plagiarists drain the pool; borrowers put back what they take
-though not necessarily in the same place.
Notes
1. John Frow (1948 -): an Australian professor and Chair of English Language and Literature at
theory，
the University of Melboume. As we][ as teaching and researching in areas as diverse as literary
theory and cultural
studie吕
C吕t
discoufse analysis and genre theory
,
Frow has a broad inter-
of
in contemporary literature and poetry
,
and in
question吕
intellectual property and the
commodification of c
ulture. He was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humani-
ties in 1997
2. Graham Swift
(1949一):
a well-known British author. Some of his works have been made into
films
,
incIuding
La
st Orders
which was a mildly controversial winner of the Booker Prize in
1996
,
owing to the superficial similarities in
pl侃to
William Faulkner's
As I
Lay岛ling.
3.
Wi
lliam Faulkner
(1
897-1962): the Nobel Prize-winning novelist and
sho民st。可writer
who is
acclaimed throughout the world as one of the twentieth
centu町's
greatest writers. From
The
Sound
and the Fury
in 1929 to
Go
Do抖'月，
Moses
in 1942
,
Faulkner accomplished in a little over
a decade more artistica
l1
y than most writers accomplish over a Iife
tÍ
me of writing.
It
is one of
th巳
more remarkable feats of American literature.
4. T.S. Eliot
(1
888 -1965): a poet
,
dramatist and literary critic. He received the Nobel
Pr
ize in
Literature in 1948. He wrote the poems
The Love Song of
J.
Alfred
Pn矿rock，
The Waste Land
,
The Holl
O
v Mell
,
Ash Wednesday
,
and
F嘻'，ourQuαω，.f印丁et只s只Y;
the plays
Murder
川int仇he
Cockt阳(//υIPαω，.[川1飞
Cαr仇h化￥edrαa11
and
The
moved
tωo
the
Unit忧ed
Kingdom
川in1914(创at
the age of 25). and became a
Briti血shl
subject in 1927 at
hermetic
1h
3:'me
tIkJ
a.
p_nr:p: Or 1nflll
P:
nr:p:
impe凹ious
to outside interfer-
e♂.g. Ht't凹'11f凹t'，川(叫'，d(吃υtht'h凹t'P川川1川1Il川t'Ifυic、忡IVO川Ild(~l扩仇fht'川111川wωSI们旷t'n芦、