After reading Intertextuality and the Discourse Community by James Porter I find myself wondering if I have ever come up with a new original idea in my writing. Now that I see that the American constitution was plagiarized. I feel as if there is no hope. Even if I feel like there is no connection to other texts in my writing it is likely that a word or phrase has been borrowed or taken from somewhere else without my knowledge. This can me in two ways, the first is subconsciously putting down a word or phrase without knowing it came from another text. The best example
I could find in the text was the term lobbed. In fact I have heard it said as a military term in movies, lob a grenade! I subconsciously heard it somewhere and I brought it into my every day language. The second way that I can borrow something without my knowledge would be if it is used in every day language. I immediately come to common Shakespeare phrases such as, dead as a doornail, or a laughing stock. Based on these two ways of intertextuallity and interpretive community I am struggling to find a conscious way to create an original work. Any suggestions, ideas, or examples of an original work? Please let me know.
Though Porter brings up some interesting points, I don't believe it makes his insights true or "original." I personally feel that originality can mean several different things and one doesn't have to reinvent the wheel to be "original." My mind keeps coming back to craft or craft-knowledge. Sure, everything we write may be pulled from something or someone else, but nobody else has crafted them into a way that you can craft them. Your insights, mixed with the insights of others, is indeed original. I feel that it is SO original that it cannot be created with the exact twist that you added.
ReplyDeleteThere's my two cents.
Austin-
ReplyDeleteThough I like where you've taken Porter's focus on originality, I think "we are walking on thin ice here" ( Kernes). I "just don't buy it" quite wholly (Anonymous).
How odd and offputting would it be if we cited each and every phrase or expression we used in our writing? I think maybe we see the patterns we do, whether you categorize them as plagorism or not, for a few reasons. The first being that paraphrasing is an actual thing, and in an orally (and now media) centered society, credit where credit is due is just not realistic or convenient, and so it is forgotten, and acceptably so. The second reason, I believe, is much like your example of 'lobbed'-- we adopt and adapt our speech patterns to the times (it's how we develop trends) and this is a very natural progression of language. Just look at English, and all of our borrowed loanwords, with more than half stemming from latin roots. Is this "plagarism" when we use these, simply because they have been said before? What about euphemisms, idioms and one-liners ('Show me the money!'- Jerry McGuire, 'Once upon a time') that get adopted into our speech? In a hundred years, the speech patterns from our time will have passed through, some sticking around and some long forgotten and the context will be lost even if the expression stays. Despite this, I can't seem to concede that I'm plagiarizing Shakespeare each time I may say I'm up in arms, or use the phrase Love is blind. It has been said before, but each end product will forever be different because of the context (or rhetorical situation of the reader). This is what really allows us to make 'original' (though I think there is probably a more appropriate word) works.
And as for orginality, try this on for size: http://caramel2cream.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/originality_.jpg
I too have lobbed and punted, although I have never played hand grenades or football. In the course of reading, then interpreting, then analyzing material we use all these processes: Analyze, Characterize, Classify, Compare, Contrast, Debate, Deduce, Diagram, Differentiate, Discriminate, Distinguish, Examine, Outline, Relate, Research, Separate etc. etc. (Blooms Taxonomy). Once the material goes through this process is it the same? How could that process not render a different product? It reminds me of omelets, originally someone just used two eggs and some cheese to create it, then someone rethought it, examined it, analyzed the flavors and possibilities, then used chives, serrano ham, local Parma cheese, fresh herb goat cheese topped with fresh chopped roma tomatoes, plated it on a lovely large plate sprinkled with fresh chopped herbs and served it on linen tablecloths. They are both omelets, they both have the same base, the same knowledge of cooking was applied but the second one surpasses the first, creates a new version, some might say a better version that when the ingredients were combined created new flavors separate and distinct from the first version. Was that just copying the originators idea or was it evolution/elevation to a new version?
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