Bibliography Scavenger Hunt! Plagiarism

I began my hunt early Saturday morning. I had walked through this magical forest before, looking for books, and knew the hard task which I faced. Finding a few books in the thousands that were out there would be very difficult. First, I needed to decide which species I was looking for. I decided that I would research plagiarism, since I have a research paper due today and that is one of the things that one tries to avoid wholeheartedly. Once I had determined this, I needed to know where to locate my prey. I pulled out my secret weapon...my laptop. I pulled up the Harold B. Lee Library's website, typed in the word "Early Plagiarism", and, quick as a gazelle, I had found a book and a periodical. Once I had captured my first target-the book-the rest was relatively easy. That book led me to it's friends, other books that also had to do with the same subject.

• Kewes, Paulina. Plagiarism in Early Modern England. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Print. This book, although written quite recently, looks at the views on and effects of early plagiarism. According to Kewes, originality can only be a category after a way to prevent plagiarism has been found. Plagiarism was found commonly when authors translated a work from another language and then inserted it, word for word, into their works. In the early 18th century, Queen Anne's Act for the Encouragement of Learning started a framework where authors could begin claiming infringement even if elements of their work instead of their whole work was copied. (I found this book on the Harold B. Lee Library's online database and snatched it from the shelves! Easy as pie.)

• Lindey, Alexander. Plagiarism and Originality. New York: Harper, 1952. Print. "The greatest men have ever been the greatest borrowers."A myth about plagiarism that existed was that writers were inspired in what they wrote and that is why some work was highly similar. Being inventive in writing was seen as a waste of time. If a writer already had the basic story line, he or she could devote much more time to piecing the story together in an interesting way. In sixteenth century England, plagiarism ran rampant. But the invention of the printing press changed things: it enabled writers to see a possibility of making a living from writing. (I found this book while browsing the shelves of the library.)

• Mallon, Thomas. Stolen Words: Forays into the Origins and Ravages of Plagiarism. New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1989. Print. Man is different from other animals in that he is more imitative and, since childhood, wants to imitate others. This did not become a problem until writers began to think of writing as their trade instead of writing in their spare time. Thomas Churchyard may have been the first to denounce plagiarism, continually insisting that it was dishonest. Plagiary, in classical times, actually meant kidnapping and was only later used to mean a literary thief. Once people learned that words could be owned by their original writers, accusations of plagiarism began to fly. (I found this source in the back of Plagiarism in Early Modern England.)

• Orgel, Stephen. The Renaissance Artist as Plagiarist. ELH Vol 48, No. 3 (1981): 476-495. This article shows that plagiarism existed in many forms including architecture and paintings as well as written art. Part of the reason that plagiarism existed in large quantities was that artists were taught to be imitative. For example, poets were told to exemplify Virgil and their mature poems were expected to be epics after the model of Virgil's Aeneid. Authors that were plagiarized also were just as likely to congratulate the plagiarizer on a witty adaptation of their work as they were to be offended. The question of the morality of copying the work of others appeared significantly only after the Renaissance. (I found this article in the periodical section. Side note: since this was a pre-1990s article and was included in the online J-store database, they encourage students to use the online source and had to get this source out of storage.)

• White, Harold Ogden. Plagiarism and Imitation during the English Renaissance: a Study in Critical Distinctions. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1935. Print. The words copy and example meant the same thing to Renaissance England and having the poet or artist come up with something out of their own mind was less trusted than imitation. The mark of an excellent artist was one that imitating classical works almost subconsciously, something only one who studied much of the work could do, not a beginner. Before the Renaissance, Homer was the only great poet who they saw as rising without imitation. The measure of an author was sometimes based on the quality of the imitation and better authors were expected to equal or surpass the earlier work. (I also found this book in the notes of Plagiarism in Early Modern England.)

Looking for these books was probably really beneficial to me. I was able to not only complete this assignment, but also discover how to better use the library and its resources. It was awesome that, when I looked up the books in the back of my first book, the library had them all! That is something I was definitely missing at my small home library where I could never find anything. I also thought it was interesting how the periodicals section is becoming more of an online resource instead of solely print materials. Most of the articles can be found online, but some can't be found on the main shelves of the periodicals section!

Another side note: I probably shouldn't be allowed to write blog posts after waking up super early to work on research papers!