Friday, June 20, 2025

To Write Is To Plagiarise

By Sumit Paul, New Age Islam 19 June 2025 Recently, I stumbled upon Roland Barthes' famous quote, "To write is to plagiarize and all great minds plagiarize." Roland Barthes's statement, "To write is to plagiarize and all great minds plagiarize," serves as a thought-provoking reminder of the creative processand the role of influence in it. Barthes implies that no writing can be completely original; instead, it inherently draws upon existing ideas and texts. By framing this borrowing of ideas as plagiarism, traditionally seen as unethical, Barthes challenges the notion that true creativity involves complete novelty. Instead, he suggests that intellectual brilliance stems from the ability to skilfully blend and reinterpret existing concepts. In essence, Barthes argues that great minds not only acknowledge but embrace their indebtedness to their intellectual predecessors, seamlessly weaving together these diverse influences to produce innovative and captivating works. This is very true. In fact, there's nothing startingly new or completely novel. Even Mirza Ghalib says in one of his Persian couplets that, " What I think as mine was already thought by many." Originality is undetected plagiarism. Even if you don't plagiarise or steal from anyone's text or surreptitiously pilfer a stray thought from an old book, your creation cannot be called wholly original. It'll just be a rehash; sort of old wine in a new bottle. What you've created and thought as your original creation was thought and created long ago, that too, in a better and more striking manner. That's the reason Ralph Waldo Emerson rued that, "All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients." Just the way, a song or musical piece revolves around 12 Swaras (or sur) and all the musical creations ensue from them, there must be clashes in tunes and compositions which cannot always be called plagiarism. The musical gamut is limited in Indian classical music. So, whatever one creates is a permutation or adaptation from the given template. In other words, one has to make do with whatever (limited) one has got. By the way, there are 12 Swaras (or sur), not 7. While there are 7 basic Swaras (Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni), also known as Shuddha Swaras, there are also 5 Vikrit Swaras (4 Komal and 1 Teevra), which are variations of the basic notes. These variations make a total of 12 Swaras in a single octave. The same happens in the sphere of creativity. Even the great American-British violinist and conductor Yehudi Menuhin was accused of plagiarising the greatest Italian violinist and composer Nicolo Paganini (1782-1840). Menuhin didn't plagiarise but some of his compositions reminded the connoisseurs of Paganini's creations. In the world of creativity, there's nothing new except for the arrangement. Barring blatant stealing from someone's works, 'honest plagiarism' (is it an oxymoron like 'an original fake' or 'ethical hacking'?) is intelligent repetition and clever arrangement. Rabindranath Tagore studied Hafiz Shirazi's Persian love verses in English. He didn't know Persian. His father knew. Many of his verses in 'Gitanjali' faintly remind the readers of Hafiz's mystic love poems. Tagore refined a few thoughts and Dohas of Kabir in his polished Bangla. Those aren't plagiarised poems but are known as Tagore's original verses. Now in this age of AI, nothing remains original. We already see AI generated write ups and replies even in this forum. When the same contents are produced by a number of 'writers,' that becomes outright plagiarism. ----- A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed articles to the world's premier publications in several languages including Persian. URL: https://www.newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/write-plagiarise/d/135915 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism

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