"Intertextuality", my arse
Feb. 10th, 2010 06:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
donnaimmaculataHave any of you heard of the current plagiarism scandal in Germany? (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
trobadora has, I assume?) Seeing as a blogger is involved, I thought it is relevant to our interests:
So, there's this edgy bestseller by the latest literary fräuleinwunder, Helene Hegemann, who's 17 and has written a novel about sex, drugs and Berlin's techno clubs. The novel was celebrated by everyone and their mother, until it came to light that the author had copied entire passages as well as very distinctive neologisms ("Vaselintitten", "Technoplastizität") verbatim from a blogger, who's been publishing excerpts from his novel on his blog: http://airen.wordpress.com/
So far, so appalling. The girl is 17, was 16 when she wrote "her" novel, so perhaps - very perhaps - one might accept her apology and trust that she wasn't aware what she was doing. Assuming she were a very thick 17-year-old.
But: Now that all this came to light, not only doesn't she show any remorse but explains it all with "intertextuality" instead - others, too, justify this blatant act of plagiarism by handwaving it as "intertextuality". Because, you see, we should stop being so naive and we should abandon our old-fashioned ideas of authors creating "original" and "unique" material. Everyone, even the greatest in literature, have been using other people's ideas when writing their novels or poems. What is Thomas Mann's "Zauberberg" if not a copy of Goethe's "Faust"? And even before literature had become a widely spread form of art, back in the days when oral tradition was the established mode of distributing stories - everything was in the public domain anyway, and nobody got upset that their name wasn't attached to the story they had created. (Yes, this is an actual argument I've heard in this debate. The mind, it boggles.) So the author should suck it up already.
I feel I should read up more on the debate, because I misremember the definition of "intertextuality" that has been used to justify this plagiarism, but I just don't have the strength of mind necessary to wade though that crap.
Die Süddeutsche Zeitung has a short interview with a blogger who noticed the striking resemblance between the rip-off and the original. Excerpts:
"It's not only individual words, but also slightly re-phrased sentences and passages, as I realised when comparing the two."
"The novel ends with a letter written to the protagonist by his dead mother. Here, Helene Hegemann has obviously used the lyrics of Fuck You by the band Archive, has perhaps changed one or two words before using it, but without indicating the quote."
trobadora has, I assume?) Seeing as a blogger is involved, I thought it is relevant to our interests:So, there's this edgy bestseller by the latest literary fräuleinwunder, Helene Hegemann, who's 17 and has written a novel about sex, drugs and Berlin's techno clubs. The novel was celebrated by everyone and their mother, until it came to light that the author had copied entire passages as well as very distinctive neologisms ("Vaselintitten", "Technoplastizität") verbatim from a blogger, who's been publishing excerpts from his novel on his blog: http://airen.wordpress.com/
So far, so appalling. The girl is 17, was 16 when she wrote "her" novel, so perhaps - very perhaps - one might accept her apology and trust that she wasn't aware what she was doing. Assuming she were a very thick 17-year-old.
But: Now that all this came to light, not only doesn't she show any remorse but explains it all with "intertextuality" instead - others, too, justify this blatant act of plagiarism by handwaving it as "intertextuality". Because, you see, we should stop being so naive and we should abandon our old-fashioned ideas of authors creating "original" and "unique" material. Everyone, even the greatest in literature, have been using other people's ideas when writing their novels or poems. What is Thomas Mann's "Zauberberg" if not a copy of Goethe's "Faust"? And even before literature had become a widely spread form of art, back in the days when oral tradition was the established mode of distributing stories - everything was in the public domain anyway, and nobody got upset that their name wasn't attached to the story they had created. (Yes, this is an actual argument I've heard in this debate. The mind, it boggles.) So the author should suck it up already.
I feel I should read up more on the debate, because I misremember the definition of "intertextuality" that has been used to justify this plagiarism, but I just don't have the strength of mind necessary to wade though that crap.
Die Süddeutsche Zeitung has a short interview with a blogger who noticed the striking resemblance between the rip-off and the original. Excerpts:
"It's not only individual words, but also slightly re-phrased sentences and passages, as I realised when comparing the two."
"The novel ends with a letter written to the protagonist by his dead mother. Here, Helene Hegemann has obviously used the lyrics of Fuck You by the band Archive, has perhaps changed one or two words before using it, but without indicating the quote."
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no subject
Date: 2010-02-11 11:50 am (UTC)There is something inherently annoying about publishers pushing some 17-year-old into the limelight every few years, claiming that the child's written the BEST BOOK EVER, OMG! They're like stage moms, in a way. And now it turns out that the child's copied someone else's book - and the media try to justify it. That's just sad.
Speaking as a person who writes for a living: I'm not categorically against copy-and-paste. But it's a bit like using a cheat slip at school: you've got to be intelligent enough not to get caught!