Shakespeare stealing again

[akfarrar]

Definition, PUNTER

Wiki:
In British English, a colloquialism for:
a customer of a prostitute.
a customer of any business, the usage being primarily found in London and Essex.

Second is closest to my usage.

[akfarrar]

I suppose you would sue the creators of the "reality show," Big Brother, because they must have "lifted" it from a great work of Orwell. Or go rampant with a lawsuit to the producers of "Survivor," because it seems all too similar to Lord of the Flies.

No, my point is that Shakespeare used other people's ideas and would not have understood intellectual property rights - so he was able to do things (which lifted both his work and the status of the original) modern writers find difficult to do - use other people's work as an integral part of their own.

And it is a little more than taking an idea - Shakespeare gets much closer than that.

(By the way, Lord of the Flies is a 'copy' of Coral Island - which is a take on Robinson Crusoe, which is itself a 'take' on a real event. )

[Regit]

And it is a little more than taking an idea - Shakespeare gets much closer than that.

Yes, and how close did he get? Still waiting for some substance here - I mean other than the undeniable Fautus and Romeo connections.

[akfarrar]

The ’evidence’ is in the two extracts quoted. To understand the extent of the copying Shakespeare does, one needs to not only look at the words ’spoken’, but at the actions and metaphors used.

In addition, it is worth remembering that this is a play script intended not for reading but for performance on a stage.

In performance, on many occasions, ’actions speak louder than words’ : The exchange of kisses is very obviously a point of comparrison : it is the over-riding image on stage– and there are word echoes (give me my soul/sin again) linking the actions.

Flaming Jupiter – is an image of fire – as is the torche – which would have been on stage in the original production to indicate night.

The closeness in time of writing of the two plays, the fact that some of the same actors would have appeared in the two productions – including possibly Shakespeare himself – would make it impossible for Shakespeare not to have known the connections between the two – so, he deliberately takes the all important stage action, part of the metaphor and even directly quotes the language.

The Elizabethan education system made people „copy” and adapt – it was not thought of as plagerism, as it would nowadays in the Western Academic World (in fact, it is still a technique used in many none-western education systems). People in the audience would be listening for the original and seeing what was done to it – in fact, a totally original work would be considered weak, arrogant and upstartish.

My post makes the point that Shakespeare is stealing the image from the play Faustus – but, instead of depriving Marlow of anything, he is in fact complementing (in the sense of being in harmony with as well as praising) the original – raising in the minds of an Elizabethan audience the image of sin and corruption, deception and evil – which are not elements this scene provokes in any production I have ever seen on the contemporary stage (and I have seen in excess of 20 productions in my lifetime – including RSC productions).

To understand my post it is necessary to examine closely the original quotes keeping in mind they are only part of what happens on stage. One also needs to bring into consideration the production techniques of the original production (daylight performances, male actors – playing many roles in one play, the heavy referencing of one work to another – not only in the words, but by one actor playing many parts, etc, etc).

I ask the question, ’Why does Shakespeare copy?’ – and provide an answer – he wants to raise certain images and issues we have lost from modern productions – which are heavily influenced by the Romantic ideas of writers like Goethe (suicide is beautiful).

The word lift does mean steal – but it also means to raise, to take higher: By lifting in the sense of stealing, Shakespeare lifts Marlow’s work to an even higher level – is that stealing?

[Regit]

Firstly, thanks for labouring the point.

'Lift' can mean raising higher, yes; though can 'lift' in "lift material from other people" have that meaning? Hmm, I'll leave that to the 'grammartical judgement' of other readers. And using other writers' material, even in Elizabethan times, is different from 'stealing', which expresses a criminal or at least dishonest nature of an act. But you seem to be defending Shakespeare with regards to dishonesty and criminality, because apparently 'steal' was purely for marketing purposes and is exempt from the interpretation of original your post.

Anyway, this has been a pointless argument, hasn't it? Let's get it over with. If you say that the argument you have just put forth in the immediately preceeding post is the same as the original argument that you tried to make with the opening post and you did not use 'steal' with any negative meaning, I'll believe you; in which case, I misunderstood you and there was no argument to begin with.

Perhaps we can have a productive discussion about Marlowe or Shakespeare soon elsewhere.

[Virgil]

Regit. Nice to see you. If you've read Antony and Cleopatra, perhaps you can join the discussion. http://www.online-literature.com/for...213#post305213

[Redzeppelin]

Sorry for those who don't know enough about the Theatre or the theatre to understand my point.

Well, at the risk of having this patronizing-sounding sentence pointed my way, I have to ask why this discussion at all? The Elizabethan theater was not some long-standing tradition that Shakespeare wandered into and started plundering. Marlowe was the first great Elizabethan dramatist of the late 16th century, and - influencial as he was - it's natural that Shakespeare (whose early plays bear considerable influence from Marlowe) would imitate the current master of the iambic pentameter line. As has been pointed out correctly above, dramas put on during this time period were quite often based on already extant stories or prior dramas - most people know that Shakepeare reworked familiar stories into the great works of art we appreciate today. The idea that he "plagiarized" is rather silly, because dramas were not created to be published works. Like today's movie scripts, their only function was to provide the actors with dialogue. After memorized, the script would likely find itself trashed, or lining the bottom of a pie pan. As well, dramtists often collaborated on plays (without credit) - so I'm sure ideas were reused, recycled, whatever. That he may have borrowed a line of dialogue or mirrored the language of a scene would only be considered plagiarism by today's highly-sensitive, litigation-happy publishers/authors. I can't imagine anybody in Shakespeare's time (good Christopher Marlowe included) would have had any problem with the similarity posted above.

It just seems like this is an unnecessary hair to split.

[Regit]

Regit. Nice to see you. If you've read Antony and Cleopatra, perhaps you can join the discussion. http://www.online-literature.com/for...213#post305213

Thank you for the invitation. I have read this play quite a while ago and quite briefly; enough that I do not feel myself qualified to give a very valuable contribution. However, I'm hoping to attend an RSC performance of this same play in March, which is an incentive for me to read it again carefully. Thus, I hope to be able to join this discussion soon. Thank you.

[DanielBenoit]

Here's an old thread. I just would like to mention, that writers have been deriving their works from different stories for ages, before and after Shakespeare.

We need to find a dividing line between plagarism and homage/derivitation