Rutgers describes plagiarism as stealing someone else’s ideas, words, etc. without giving them due credit. Lethem, however, conveys that plagiarism is more along the lines of necessary inspiration; something we all need to form thoughts and opinions and creations of our own. Rutgers’ definition obviously has far more negative, and common connotations, while Lethem’s more abstract, more avant-garde description is seemingly unnaturally positive and integral to human life, especially the academic community. The distinction between the two is interesting because we are brought up to believe that all forms of plagiarism are bad, but Lethem allows us to healthily question this idea, and really look into the role of plagiarism in all the “original” works we, as a society, put on a pedestal. He especially highlights this in the following excerpt from “The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism”:
“You take away our right to steal ideas, where are they going to come from?” If nostalgic cartoonists had never borrowed from Fritz the Cat, there would be no Ren & Stimpy Show; without the Rankin/Bass and Charlie Brown Christmas specials, there would be no South Park; and without The Flintstones — more or less The Honeymooners in cartoon loincloths — The Simpsons would cease to exist. If those don’t strike you as essential losses, then consider the remarkable series of “plagiarisms” that links Ovid’s “Pyramus and Thisbe” with Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story, or Shakespeare’s description of Cleopatra, copied nearly verbatim from Plutarch’s life of Mark Antony and also later nicked by T. S. Eliot for The Waste Land. If these are examples of plagiarism, then we want more plagiarism (Lethem 214).
In conclusion, while at Rutgers, and in American schooling in general, plagiarism is always showcased as a horrible, treacherous act, it is important to reflect on how many creations we all know and love were truly created one hundred percent authentically.
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