People don’t seem very happy to find out they’ve been plagiarized. They don’t seem very flattered. They don’t seem very receptive to their plagiarists telling them it was all an act of love.
Matthew Welton, for instance – a British poet who teaches at the University of Nottingham – seems to have found it downright sneaky that serial plagiarist C.J. Allen altered Welton’s poems just enough to avoid easy detection. Indeed only Welton himself, on buying a collection of Allen’s poems after one of Allen’s poetry readings, recognized the extensive lifting.
This long article parses the difference between an homage to/being inspired by/doing a free translation of a cited work/etc. and being a lazy motherfucker who takes someone else’s artwork and publishes it as one’s own. The author quotes a friend:
‘There’s a world of difference between Prokofiev formally basing the 2nd movement of his 2nd symphony on the 2nd movement of Beethoven’s Op.111, and Graham Nunn flattening out his notebook alongside a book by Helen Dunmore’.
Yes – it’s not really subtle, is it?
And speaking of subtle: UD has zero interest in the psychological excuses offered by plagiarists when they’ve been found out and when their first line of defense (homage, pastiche, that shit) fails. They’ve always been insecure; when their mother died it really did a number on them…
When the psycho line also fails to generate sympathy, plagiarists move to Position Three, drug and alcohol abuse. I did it because I’m a desperate mess. How did I manage to conduct a grueling book tour, run university seminars, give poetry readings, and produce a new plagiarized book while so debilitated by drugs? I don’t know, but…
(Position Four)…
… I’m happy I’ve been found out! I plagiarized so blatantly in order to be found out! I craved being brought low enough, being hollowed out thoroughly enough, to find my way back to my lost faith. I have recently joined a Catholic parish, spent hours in a confessional box, and experienced forgiveness. I will share my rebirth in my next book.