I appreciate that. I found it was generating a lot of negative attention, so I removed it from the page. Might have been framed too provocatively for people to approach the idea with an open mind.
There's also a distinction between plagiarism and an allusion.
When Dylan opens "Like a Rolling Stone" with the phrase "once upon a time," people understand that he's not claiming to be the first person to put those four words together in that sequence. And the song would lose some meaning if it was. People think it's theft when they don't recognize the reference because they think it was meant to be hidden but that's relative to their level of knowledge, not to what Dylan was doing. (Rick Worley said that: https://youtu.be/vqnjzVX8EKA?si=vFZ0R3wZPIvdcqbY&t=2302).
And if you look at "Floater (Too Much to Ask)" from "Love and Theft," someone who hasn't read Confessions of a Yakuza won't know that, "Why don't you just shove off if it bothers you so much" is a lift, but they will know that Dylan did not invent Romeo and Juliet. (I said that).
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.
Oscar Wilde
In this case, and of course in Shakespeare’s, it’s not mediocrity doing the imitation or flattering. As you adeptly argue - and in both cases, it may be true in reverse. Greatness, in imitation, making something mediocre excellent. Truly all great artists in every medium have mimicked mentors and those they most admired
What happened to the video version of this material? (I liked it [or I hallucinated it])
I appreciate that. I found it was generating a lot of negative attention, so I removed it from the page. Might have been framed too provocatively for people to approach the idea with an open mind.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DGvkIB1JCCC/?igsh=NGozdDc5M2V0emlv
There's also a distinction between plagiarism and an allusion.
When Dylan opens "Like a Rolling Stone" with the phrase "once upon a time," people understand that he's not claiming to be the first person to put those four words together in that sequence. And the song would lose some meaning if it was. People think it's theft when they don't recognize the reference because they think it was meant to be hidden but that's relative to their level of knowledge, not to what Dylan was doing. (Rick Worley said that: https://youtu.be/vqnjzVX8EKA?si=vFZ0R3wZPIvdcqbY&t=2302).
And if you look at "Floater (Too Much to Ask)" from "Love and Theft," someone who hasn't read Confessions of a Yakuza won't know that, "Why don't you just shove off if it bothers you so much" is a lift, but they will know that Dylan did not invent Romeo and Juliet. (I said that).
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.
Oscar Wilde
In this case, and of course in Shakespeare’s, it’s not mediocrity doing the imitation or flattering. As you adeptly argue - and in both cases, it may be true in reverse. Greatness, in imitation, making something mediocre excellent. Truly all great artists in every medium have mimicked mentors and those they most admired