From: LANDSBERG@sbhep2.phy.sunysb.edu (Greg Landsberg)
Subject: "K voprosu o plagiate" ili otkritoe pis'mo A.Kostomarovu
Organization: SUNY at Stony Brook
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 03:35:58 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.20

Instead of epigraph:                                    
                          ``Plagiarize! Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
                            Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
                            So don't shade your eyes but plagiarize,
                            Plagiarize, plagiarize!'' - Tom Lehrer

Stopping   by at  my   university in   between   vacations I   noticed that
sasha@cbnewsi.cb.att.com (Alexander Kostomaroff) still writes:

> .reg Landsberg
> of SUNY at Stony Brook
> writes in his follow-up on my posting:

>>I'm sorry,  but ``v  russko-literaturnom  znachenii'' this  verse should be
>>named  ``plagiat.'' See  ``Vot ya  vnov'  posetil'' by Joseph  Brodsky. You
>>copied  too much  from  their,  starting with  first  line and  ending with
>>rhythmic pattern. Well, it could be unintentionally of course, but still...
>>
>>Greg

> Mr. Landsberg,
>
> if you pay any attention to the punctuation, you may see that the words
> <vot ya vnov' posetil> are set in the quotation marks. So much for your
> discovery about the authorship.

> The verse in question is certainly influenced by the "Ot Okrainy k Tsentru"
> by J.Brodsky. There is nothing shameful in such an association: world literature
> of the highest standards is full of the same. (I don't imply this way that my
> verse belongs to the Olympus of poetry). The metre - I guess that's what you
> refer as "rythmic pattern"  - is just one of the few existing in the Russian
> poetic language. If you do a little research in some standard text book, you
> may even figure the name.
> 
> Anyway, plagiarizm is "an appropriation of writings and ideas of another
> as one's own". Before accusing anybody in such an act, think first - 
> or your face may look assimetrical for awhile. BTW, the English word is
> "plagiarim" not "plagiat".
>
> If not the desire to set the record straight for the rest of netters,
> I would not dignify you personally with a response.
>
> A. Kostomaroff

    Mr. Kostomaroff,

I mostly pay  attention to the  content of the posting,  but in your case I
studied the  punctuation as well...  Yes, you indeed  set the first line of
your verse in quotation marks. So  what? Do you think that this is the only
well  ...  compilation  from the   aforementioned   author, which  I called
"plagiat"? Let's straighten it out.

First of all, about  punctuation... As you  probably know, American-English
typesetting rules propose to use double quotes like `` and '' to denote the
citation.  Following  these rules I  putted the  Russian word  "plagiat" in
these double  quotes as well as an  exert from your  original posting which
was in Russian. If you prefer to be accused in English, please feel free to
change the "plagiat" with  ``plagiarism.'' And, by the way, before teaching
me English (yes, your  command of English is a  way better than mine, which
probably reflects the fact that you live in this country much longer than I
do), please make an effort to look  through your recent reply and to notice
that not only you misspelled the word ``plagiarism'' twice in two different
ways, but you  also  misspelled even the  quoted term  ``rhythmic pattern''
from my posting. It was  also very funny to learn  from your reply that you
think that the word ``asymmetrical'' originates from the word ``ass'' (look
at your awful spelling ``assimetrical'').

To make your life easier, this time I'm going to cite all quotes in Russian
using double  quotation marks (","),  while all English  quotations will be
setted in ``,'' according to aforementioned rules.

OK, now let's move to the contents  of your postings. The quoted definition
of the verb ``plagiarize'' is truncated. Let me quote it completely for you
from ``The  American  Heritage  Dictionary of the  English  Language'' (3rd
edition):   ``Plagiarize  - ...  2. To   appropriate for  use as  one's own
passages  or ideas  from  (another). -  intr. To put  forth as  original to
oneself the ideas or words of  another.'' As you can see, ``to plagiarize''
does not  necessarily mean to  appropriate  someone ideas  as one's own. It
could be just to USE  someone's idea without  proper credits to the author.
And your   ``Copyright by  Alexander   Kostomaroff''  supposed  to mean the
attributing of the ideas  in your verse to  yourself, unless you understand
the word   ``copyright'' in  Soviet way:   ``Copyright - right  for copying
(sov.)''

You wrote  that your  verse was  ``influenced''  by Brodsky's  poetry. Yes,
there is  nothing shameful in  such an  influence.  Unfortunately, as it is
clear from  the verse, it's somewhat  more than a  mere  reflection of this
influence. I would say that the verse in fact is A COMPILATION of Brodsky's
style and several of his verses. I intentionally didn't discuss the quality
of this verse in my first posting on  this subject. I wouldn't say that the
verse is bad or good -  it just too much alike  Brodsky's famous verses. If
you named such a piece of poetry  something like "Podrazhanie Brodskomu'' I
would have never  posted anything  against it. Yes,  it's quite a well-done
imitation, ersatz. However, you claim something more than that...

Your guess  about the  ``rhythmic  pattern''  being used as a  ``metre'' is
wrong. If your knowledge of poetry is stagnated at the ``standard text book
level'' I would clarify what did I mean (and what philologists mean) by the
``rhythmic   pattern''  or   "ritmicheskij  risunok" (in   Russian). As you
mentioned in your letter, there is quite a few of metres in Russian poetry.
We are  talking about  the  trisyllabic metrical  foots,  which are dactyl,
amphibrach  and  anapaest. Your  verse is written  in more or  less classic
anapaest, just  with the different  number of rhythmic  elements (foots) in
odd and even lines. However, as you can guess, not only the meter determine
the melody  of the  verse, but the  number of  lines in a  stanza, male and
female type of rhymes,  the aforementioned number  of foots in odd and even
lines and a lot of other factors. All these factors as a whole are referred
to as a  "ritmicheskij risunok  stiha." The same meter  could correspond to
absolutely different rhythmic  patterns, and the famous example is given by
A.S.Pushkin in his:

        ``Chetirehstopnij yamb mne nadoel - 
          Im pishet vsyakij. Mal'chikam v zabavu
          Ego pora ostavit'. Ya b hotel
          Davnim-davno prinyat'sya za oktavu.''

(this and all subsequent poetic  citations are given by heart, so I'm sorry
in advance for possible unintentional changes in authors punctuation).

From a  poor-man point  of view the  above verse  is written  in a standard
iambus, but eventually it is much  more complicated, because it's a part of
octave -  one of  the most   sophisticated  poetic  meters,  which could be
compared only  with  hexameter. If you'd  like to knew more  about octave I
would recommend you to read Petrarcha's sonets.

So,  now I  hope  that I  clarified  the  meaning  of the  term  ``rhythmic
pattern'' in my first posting. And this patter is very individual for every
author. Like handwriting, it could  be used to determine who wrote a novel,
a verse etc. As you  probably know, there was a  great scandal when someone
accused M.Sholohov on stealing "Tihij Don" because the style was completely
different from the style  of other Sholohov's  novels. The rhythmic pattern
in poetry essentially determines the style.

Now, back to the ``influence'' and  ``plagiarism.'' The funny thing is that
Brodsky  himself wrote a  lot of  times that his  poetry was  influenced by
Pushkin's   poetry, and the  very  first line  of  Brodsky's "Ot  okraini k
tsentru"   (which is the  same  as in  your  verse) is of  course  a direct
citation of  Pushkin's "Vnov'  ya  posetil..." But nobody  in mental health
would  accuse  Brodsky in   plagiarism of  Pushkin,  because his  poetry is
absolutely  revolutioning and just  was borned and  developed from the best
heritage of  Russian  poetry, like  Kantemir,  Pushkin,  Ahmatova et al. He
introduced "sbitij razmer," a lot of  absolutely new rhymes - all in all, a
great bulk of what we know now as his style.

This is what one  can call and  should call the  ``influence.'' But not the
direct  copying of  rhymes and  style  which are  obvious in  your verse. I
didn't give detailed critics of your verse in my first posting just because
it wasn't interesting to  me, but if I already  climbed in this discussion,
I'll spend  half an hour more  to surge it  on line-by-line  basis with the
announcement of the  source of compilation. You  wished to ``set the record
straight for the rest of netters'' -  so ``let the folks know its heroes!''
(Well, not all  the folks, of  course, but  most prepared  netters who were
brave enough to read current posting up to this point!)

> 	Epigraph: who can say why today tomorrow will be yesterday?

Usually the epigraph is followed by the source of citation unless these are
your own words  which I doubt  because I  heard at least  two variations of
that  phrase back  to  Russia -  sorry, I  don't  remember who  is the real
author...

> "Vot ya vnov' posetil ..."

We already  discussed it... Just one  point - if you  want to quote, it's a
good  idea to  quote  the  original  -  "Vnov' ya  posetil"  - and  not the
reminiscence, otherwise it's just a ``double quotation.''

> A khotielos' - nievprokhmiel' - vernut'sia.
> V tu zhe rieku stupil,

OK, this is  just a  stock-phrase, but who  cares? And if  you care so much
about quotations, why didn't you set  in quotation marks this citation from
Heraclitus, BTW? :-)

> Chob s toboj i s soboj razminut'sia.

Here we are: ``razminut'sya --  vernut'sya.'' Saying nothing about ``verbal
rhyme''  (which was  considered as a  bad  tradition by  Russian poetry and
which was  in fact  ``revived''  by  Brodsky's "Mne  govoryat,  chto nuzhno
ueszhat'..." and by the "Ot okraini k tsentru" which we discuss), it's just
a so  called   "skritoe   tsitirovanie"   (``implicit   citation'')  of the
aforemetioned Brodsky's verse:

        "...Nichego ne uznal, oboznalsya, zabil, obmanulsya,
        Znachit snova zima, znachit ya nikuda ne vernulsya..."

> Razbivaja liedok nojabria
> Na povierknosti Liety,
> Oskol'zajus'. Soznan'ie drobia,
> Ukhozhu ot otvieta.
> 
> 
> I nie tsariev ukaz
> Iz impierii vyslal kurilku,

The term  "imperiya" was  applied to the  Commies Russia  by Brodsky (well,
after Pushkin,  of course)  and was very  often used in  most of his verses
devoted to exile:  "Pis'ma rimskomu drugu,"  "Kolibel'naya treskovogo misa"
etc. By the  way, if one  speak about empire  it's kinda  illiterate to use
``tsar'' instead of  ``emperor'' or ``tyrant.''  Brodsky (and Pushkin) used
the   thesis-antithesis   "poet-tiran"  very  often, so  this is  again the
repetition, repetition, repetition...

> No raskos jeja glaz
> Mieru vysshuju - viechnuju ssylku

Ok,  this  seems to be  fresh  and it's  your  own!  Especially  if you use
"vysshuyu meru" in "russko-literaturnom" znachenii.

> Propisal svistunu,
> Pustomielie, gieroju, izgoju.

Just for fun: compare these with:

"...Slovoverzhtsu, lzhetsu, pozhiratelu melkoj slezi,
    Obozhatelyu Engra, tramvainih zvonkov, asfodelej..."
            ("Na smert' druga" by J.Brodsky)

Can you smell the difference? :-)

> Zatvoritie stranu!
> No ostav'tie okno nad Nievoju.
> 
> 
> Tak, davaj zhe, nal'jom
> My do kraju i vyp'jem do kapli.
> Za nash prizrachnyj dom,
> Za jego dierieviannye stavni,
> Za ampirnost' kolonn,
> Za dymok nad ubogoj truboju.

Hidden citation of Brodsky's "Novie stansi v Avguste" (?):
    
    "...I legche dima nad pechnoj truboj..."

which is also filled with the theme of exile. This quote probably is a
reminiscence on Derzhavin's "Otechestva i dim nam sladok i priyaten."

It's also a hidden citation from the already cited "Na smert' druga":

    "...mestnih trub prohodimtsu i dima..."

> Za preryvnost' vriemion,
> Za tiebia. I mienia ... nie s toboju.

All the last stanza is  also too alike  Ahmatova's verse which, by the way,
has been posted to the SCS few days ago by Denis Golosov:

>           POSLEDNY TOCT.               (AHHA AXMATOBA)
> 
> Ya p'yu za razorenny dom,
> Za zluyu zhizn' moyu,
> Za odinochestvo vdvoyem,
> I za tebya ya p'yu,
>    Za lozh' men'a predavshikh gub,
>    Za myortvy kholod glaz,
>    Za to, chto mir zhestok i grub,
>    Za to, chto Bog ne spas.

You know, there was a  lot of people who started  to reproduce the one-word
sentences after  famous Block's:  "Noch'. Ulitsa.  Fonar'. Apteka." But who
remember  them now? It  reminds me  the other  story with  Ahmatova's verse
with the famous line "Ya na pravuyu ruku nadela // perchatku s levoj ruki."
She became very popular  that time and a lot of  ``versificators'' began to
imitate her style and one day she commented about one poetess that probably
she'll  soon write  something  like: "Ya  na levuyu  nogu  nadela kaloshu s
pravoj nogi." So, "vasha kalosha ne s toj nogi-s, g-n Kostomarov."

I don't remember  whole Brodsky by  heart and I don't  have a book hand-by.
But anyone who look through "Chast'  rechi" and "Ostanovka v pustine" would
find a lot of  other implicit and  explicit citations  from Brodsky in your
verse. When I read it  first my immediate  reaction was that I already read
it somewhere, and now I know where...

As W.Mizner said: ``If  you steal from one  author, it's plagiarism; if you
steal from many, it's research.'' I  wouldn't say that you made a research,
Mr. Kostomaroff.

Well, I'm not interested in further discussion about your verse - I already
said all what I  think about it and  don't wish to  waste my time on it any
more. It's up to you how do you  treat your ``fine art.'' It's the question
of your honor and your conscience.  However, if you want to copyright (even
in  joke)  the   things  you   write  you  should  be  more   careful  with
``influences'' unless you change your signature:

> Copyright by Alexander Kostomaroff, observer of passing events.

with the

``Copyright by Alexander Kostomaroff, compiler of passing events.''

(cf. ``Not with a bang, but a whimper'' - Sir T.S.Eliot)

And the last.  Please keep  all your  loutishness like:  ``think first - or
your face may  look  assimetrical for  awhile,'' ``I would  not dignify you
personally  with a response''  etc. for your  AT&T  boss(es). His/Her/Their
reaction  would probably  be more  appropriate  than mine  (which is just a
disgust). I  didn't try to  abuse you  personally - I wrote  a quite polite
posting  about  YOUR VERSE  and not   YOURSELF. And I  did it,  by the way,
because your reaction to Patricia's  postings was quite similar to mine own
and it  was just a  pain to  observe that  you  nearly followed  her ``nice
traditions''  in  exploring Russian  culture  (though on a  somewhat higher
level). "``Poetov'' razvelos' - pora otstrel nachat'!"

Greg Landsberg

P.S. To Whom It May Concern: Merry Christmas!
Newsgroups: soc.culture.soviet,talk.politics.soviet,soc.culture.europe