Borrowed feathers : plagiarism and the limits of imitation in early modern Europe

Omtale

Plagiarism, the act of passing off other people's ideas or words as one's own, has always aroused strong feelings and acrimonious debate. This book examines a wide variety of potentially transgressive writing practices (literary, philosophical, historiographical, technical writings, and Bible translations) within the framework of the early modern culture of imitation (1400-1700). At that time, when the Romantic ideal of originality was still in the remote future, the "imitation" of other writers was regarded as legitimate and indeed unavoidable; in consequence, the perception of what constituted transgressive borrowing was very different from ours. Yet debates and quarrels often arose between writers who accused each other of "plundering," "stealing" or "usurping" other writers' texts; such metaphors occupied the ground that would later be designated by the word "plagiarism" itself. A consideration of this prehistory enhances our modern understanding of plagiarism.