Homage or Theft?

[one_raven]

I will often see one filmmaker paying homage to another with obscure - and sometimes overt - references to another filmmaker's work.
In Kevin Smith's Clerks, for example, Randal says, "No time for love, Dr Jones" in one scene.
This was written as a nod to the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom film, because Smith is a big fan.

Does the same thing occuur in literature, or would it just be considered cheap pilfering and lack of creativity?
I don't think I have ever seen it done in a novel.
Does it matter if it is quoted by a character, or a turn of phrase simply re-used by the author/narrator?

What are your thoughts on this?

[johann cruyff]

A very simple example: Dostoevsky often mentions Gogol and/or his characters,sometimes subtly,sometimes very blatantly.Or,for instance,take Eugene Onegin - it's packed with various references to other authors,artists etc.

I'd imagine this happens even more often now,with postmodern writers,but anyhow,no,I don't think it's cheap pilfering,if anything,it slightly adds to the credibility of the book,in my opinion.

[one_raven]

if anything,it slightly adds to the credibility of the book,in my opinion.

How so?

[johann cruyff]

That didn't come out exactly as I wanted

I meant,if I read a book about a character who reads,let's say,Gogol,or talks about him,that character,and,subsequently,the whole setting of the book immediately become more believable than in a book in which the whole world is fictional and the characters refer to fictional people...Yes,a bit confusing,but I hope you understand what I mean.

[sprinks]

It would depend on if they are really just paying homage to someone or if they are just trying to subtly steal someone else ideas... I've seen it occur more often in songs and films but not so much in novels, and from what I'm thinking now it would probably be harder for an author to pay homage to someone than for a singer or filmmaker. But I may be wrong.

[one_raven]

Yes,a bit confusing,but I hope you understand what I mean.

Yes, I get it now.
That makes sense.

So what if it is just a turn of phrase lifted from another author?
Let's say, for example, someone writes a book and uses, "The little scratch on the roof of your mouth that would heal if you could just stop tonguing it, but you can't" to describe someone - or something.
Lifted directly from the narrator's description of Marla Singer in Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club.

Would that be homage or theft?

[sprinks]

My personal opinion on that is that it would be theft if they try to deny that it was someone elses words, but homage if they are open to admitting that they took it from someone else... But even still it would really only be homage if they used it in respect and admiration for the author, not just because they want to use it to benefit themself?

[one_raven]

So it all comes down to intention (as so many things do) and credit?

[sprinks]

In my personal opinion, yes.

But there may be technicalities that mean I'm wrong and it really is just one or the other.

[one_raven]

In my personal opinion, yes.

But there may be technicalities that mean I'm wrong and it really is just one or the other.

I don't care about legalities and technicalities.
I am just looking for opinion.

[sprinks]

Okay then, opinions I can do

I'd like to hear others opinions on the matter, but to me it honestly just comes down to why they use it and how they use it.

[Kafka's Crow]

Umberto Eco himself claimed that nothing in The Name of the Rose was original. Every single idea, motif, even names of characters were taken from other works. Originality is a very out-dated concept and writers make a point of making this clear. No Country for Old Men is taken from TS Eliot, Things Fall Apart is from Yeats, Of Mice and Men is from Robert Burns. Russian writers mention Pushkin repeatedly in their novels, specially Eugene Onegin. TS Eliot and Ezra Pound went back to other writers on countless occasions, Hemingway mentions Andrew Marvel in A Farewell to Arms. This just shows that writers believe their work is a part of a thriving literary tradition which can be referred back to. The references can be made across genres. Sting sings of feeling like "The old man in that book by Nabokov" an obvious allusion to Lolita in 'Don't stand so close to me.' There are whole books written about other real books, for instance The Club Dumas. Eco's Name of the Rose is also about another manuscript which is believed to have existed at some point in history.

[kandaurov]

As usual, I agree with what Kafka's Crow is trying to get across. Some modernist writers thought that, after so many centuries of culture, it's now impossible to be original; much of the 20th century literature has a great degree of intertextuality. Joyce and TS Eliot are nice examples of that. Created more than 2000 years ago, the Aeneid, strikingly similar to Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, works also as a homage to Homer's greatness. And whether there's homage or theft, well, that depends: Nirvana's cover of "The Man who sold the World" is a tribute to Bowie's song (Cobain acknowledged Bowie's authorship after having played it), whereas Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" is infamous for its blatant and unauthorized sampling of Queen's and Bowie's "Under Pressure" bass line, whose royalties Vanilla Ice amazingly enough refused to pay.

[kelby_lake]

In Crime Passionel, Hugo uses the alias 'Raskolnikov'- 'some axe murderer in a book'

[JBI]

"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal." - T. S. Eliot

"An artist is a creature driven by demons. He don’t know why they choose him and he’s usually too busy to wonder why. He is completely amoral in that he will rob, borrow, beg, or steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done."

"If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate: The “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is worth any number of old ladies."
- William Faulkner.