← Previous Post: | Next Post:

 

Villainelles

The school superintendent who plagiarizes, word for word, his heartfelt personal welcome to students at the beginning of the school year is never embarrassed. He explains that he happened to have found on the web a heartfelt personal welcome to students at the beginning of the school year that said exactly what he wanted to say, so he used that. If you insist he contact the original author, he’ll do that, but he assures you that the guy’s gonna be flattered; what he has done, after all, is an homage.

The poet who plagiarizes the work of better poets who say exactly what he wants to say but say it ever so much better so why not take their words is similarly shocked when people act as if he’s some sort of villain. It’s a postmodern pastiche, for fuck’s sake, an appropriation art comment on the death of originality in our time. If you’ve got a corncob up your ass and can’t get with the program it’s not his fault.

Margaret Soltan, September 13, 2013 8:14AM
Posted in: plagiarism

Trackback URL for this post:
https://www.margaretsoltan.com/wp-trackback.php?p=41170

3 Responses to “Villainelles”

  1. MattF Says:

    I must have missed the boat to the Land of Pastiche Appreciation. But then, truthfully, I even like narrative– so… poor unmodern me.

  2. Robert Mathiesen Says:

    The whole ethos of the present time, to judge by what I saw in the early 2000s (just before retiring from academic life) is that no one should ever be held responsible for anything they say or write. Always it was meant as irony, or satire, or a j/k [joke], or everyone else does it, or . . . ad libitum, ad infinitum. The underlying theme is always, no blame, no shame, no guilt . . . such old-fashioned, “modern” notions they are, utterly unsuited to a post-modern age!

    This goes hand-in-hand with what the young women are calling the rise of the man-child, or of Peter Pans (“I *won’t* grow up . . .”!), as they wonder where all the suitable men have gone.

  3. adam Says:

    Here is my take, with apologies to Banjo Patterson (The Man From Snowy River). It helps to know the Hunter River flows through Newcastle, where this chap lived, and that Uni is the Australian vernacular diminutive for University.

    THE POET FROM HUNTER RIVER
    There was movement at the Uni, for the word had passed around
    That the bloke from Hunter River had been outed,
    And that he was now in hiding – out of sight and gone to ground,
    Just because of silly rules he flouted.
    All the experts and the pundits came from Uni’s near and far,
    They mustered to defend their precious trade,
    For these poets love hard writing where the poetry prizes are
    Even if they “borrow” lines to make the grade.

Comment on this Entry

UD REVIEWED

Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
New York Times

George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
The Electron Pencil

It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading.
Professor Mondo

There's always something delightful and thought intriguing to be found at Margaret Soltan's no-holds-barred, firebrand tinged blog about university life.
AcademicPub

You can get your RDA of academic liars, cheats, and greedy frauds at University Diaries. All disciplines, plus athletics.
truffula, commenting at Historiann

Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
Dagblog

University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
Dissent: The Blog

[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho...
The Wall Street Journal

Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo.
Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Education

[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile.
Sean Dorrance Kelly, Harvard University

Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure.
Roland Greene, Stanford University

The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan...
Carlat Psychiatry Blog

Margaret Soltan, whose blog lords it over the rest of ours like a benevolent tyrant...
Perplexed with Narrow Passages

Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying. But she makes a good point here...
Outside the Beltway

From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
Money Law

University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it.
Anthony Grafton, American Historical Association

The inimitable Margaret Soltan is, as usual, worth reading. ...
Medical Humanities Blog

I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given [this blog] its heaviest traffic...
Ducks and Drakes

As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
The Bitch Girls

Many of us bloggers worry that we don’t post enough to keep people’s interest: Margaret Soltan posts every day, and I more or less thought she was the gold standard.
Tenured Radical

University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know.
Mary Beard, A Don's Life

[University Diaries offers] a broad sense of what's going on in education today, framed by a passionate and knowledgeable reporter.
More magazine, Canada

If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot.
Notes of a Neophyte

Archives

Categories