Abstract
‘Plagiarism’ is one of those words that simultaneously identifies a concept and conveys an attitude towards it: in this case, a strongly disapprobative one. Swift referred to it as a ‘hard’ word, meaning harsh or censorious in its application.1 In this sense, it works rather like the word ‘noise’, which means nothing more than ‘sound’, except that it is viewed in a disapproving way as a disturbance or intrusion. This doubleness in the construction of plagiarism is evident in the OED 2 definition:
plagiarism 1. The action or practice of plagiarizing; the wrongful appropriation or purloining, and publication as one’s own, of the ideas, or the expression of the ideas … of another.2
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
On modern ‘plagiarism studies’, see my ‘Plagiarism and Plagiarism Studies’, English Subject Centre Newsletter, 13 (October 2007): 6–8. The explosion of studies in this area can be deduced from two major studies published in 2007 alone: Tilar J. Mazzeo’s Plagiarism and Literary Property in the Romantic Period (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007)
and Robert Macfarlane’s Original Copy: Plagiarism and Originality in Nineteenth-Century Literature (Oxford University Press, 2007).
My methodology is indebted to Quentin Skinner, ‘The Idea of a Cultural Lexicon’, Essays in Criticism, 29 (1979): 205–24.
It is worth stressing here that this book does not propose itself as a contribution to the debate about the development of copyright. My general view is that no necessary relation exists between issues of literary originality and those concerning the definition of literary property as enshrined in eighteenth-century copyright legislation. See Simon Stern’s lucid analysis of these issues in ‘Copyright, Originality, and the Public Domain in Eighteenth-Century England’, in Reginald McGinnis (ed.) Originality and Intellectual Property in the French and English Enlightenment (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 69–101. See in particular his remark that ‘there is little reason to conclude that in the eighteenth century, originality (understood as novelty or creativity) played even a tacit role in the definition of literary property’ (p. 70). I am grateful to Dr Stern for allowing me to see his essay prior to publication. For other recent treatments of the relation between copyright legislation and literary creativity, see Paul K. Saint-Amour, The Copywrights: Intellectual Property and the Literary Imagination (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003)
and Jody Greene, The Trouble with Ownership: Literary Property and Authorial Liability in England, 1660–1730 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2010 Richard Terry
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Terry, R. (2010). Introduction. In: The Plagiarism Allegation in English Literature from Butler to Sterne. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230289918_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230289918_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-32342-5
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-28991-8
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)