In ‘The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism,’ Jonathan Lethem discusses the nature of plagiarism and what plagiarism has done to today’s creative society. Lethem questions whether Nabokov’s novel was a result of influence from Lichberg’s version or whether he made specific and intended references to Lichberg’s novel. Lethem is attempting to figure out how writers, artists, photographers, videographers can produce original artwork when they are simultaneously being influenced by so many different factors. The common phenomenon is that many artists and writers borrow from each other and “plagiarize” different aspects of art.
One sentence that really caught my attention is that when you simply accuse people of plagiarism “you attack the next generation of creators for the crime of being influenced. They make the world smaller” (Lethem 65). It makes me thinking that plagiarism cannot be regarded as a black-and-white issue because, in some way when we borrow someone else’s work and incorporate it into our own work, we also create something new and provide more masterpiece to the society. If we only focus on the originality, we may miss the chance to create many valuable artworks, which usually at first are inspired by someone else. Overemphasizing the ownership and the copyright, on the contrary, will limit the new generation of artists. There are many things that are undiscovered, according to Lethem, and if we just pull little bits and pieces of information from other areas, there is much to be discovered and made.