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.

[JBI]

No Country for Old Men is taken from Yeats, not Eliot. It comes from Sailing to Byzantium.

[mayneverhave]

T.S. Eliot -

"Immature artists imitate; Mature artists steal"

EDIT: and it appears someone else already posted that quote.

A common stylistic trait in modernism is the use of allusion.

If you look at works like The Waste Land and Ulysses, they are packed with a myriad of allusions and references to other works.

[PeterL]

Everything ever written makes reference, either directly or by implication, to what came before. Humans try to say the same things in different terms, and we admire those who have said some of those things beautifully.

[Kafka's Crow]

No Country for Old Men is taken from Yeats, not Eliot. It comes from Sailing to Byzantium.

Thanks for the correction, my bad (slaps his wrist!)

[stlukesguild]

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


Picasso, it would seem, agreed:
Good artists copy. Great artists steal.

The notion I get from both is that all artists take from others... especially their predecessors. The great artist, however, makes what he or she has taken completely his or her own.

[PeterL]

And didn't Georges Polti write that there are only thirty-six dramatic situations? Try as they can, no one has been able to come up with a thirty-seventh. However, people do express those thirty-six situations in fresh, new ways, which is just a variation of what you said.

And someone else boiled it down to three or four, with the additional ones being reversals and combinations. Personally, I think that there really are a few dozens.

[JBI]

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


Picasso, it would seem, agreed:
Good artists copy. Great artists steal.

The notion I get from both is that all artists take from others... especially their predecessors. The great artist, however, makes what he or she has taken completely his or her own.

Even Blake wasn't completely original. He relied on Biblical and Miltonic allusions and themes for his poetry. His plates on the other hand, are probably some of the most original in English art history.

Shakespeare wasn't original, in the sense of the question proposed, yet he managed to create something new, using previously enjoyed sources.

There are actually two very interesting books of criticism on these subjects, Lionel Trilling's Sincerity and Authenticity (a difficult book, being that the examples are from quite a wide range of places), and Harold Bloom's Anxiety of Influence.

[stlukesguild]

I've always been of the belief that regardless of whatever themes or intentions are central to a work of art, it almost always involves a dialog with other artists.

[kelby_lake]

Anyway, isn't there only something like 16 stories in existance and every book or play is just a variation of those stories?

[JBI]

I think there are only two.
Man/woman changes things around him
man/woman is changed by things around him

everything else is just details.

[kelby_lake]

what about man does not change at all?
i'd say pretty much all stories fit under your categories, but as such, they're not plots.
so let's suggest the few basic stories that all others are based on

[JBI]

If there is no change, there is no story.

[capek]

It's called literary allusions. Kinda a fundamental part of the art form..

[Kafka's Crow]

"It is only good manners if you repeat a few other men to at least do it better or more briefly. Utter originality is of course out of the question."


Ezra Pound Make it New

[Aiculík]

Allusions are ok. It's nice to find one and to recognize it - it makes you feel 'oh yeah, I'm soo clever'. :D And if you've never seen one, try postmodernists. Eco, for example. He loves allusions of all kind, from the comics to books read only by few 'literary maniacs'. :)

If there are many allusions to many authors and works, it can be confusing, annoying or plain boring; it requires great 'Master of Allusions' (e.g. Eco) to make it work.

Too many 'allusions' of the same author and even same book... especially if they are not just one liners, but whole paragraphs - than it's lack of creativity, yeah. Also known as plagiarism.