baeddel:

i’m going a little crazy with the plagiarism-and-intertextuality thing. what do i do? if i write in a story about hyacinths in a pleasure garden, i know that those things are in my head because i listen to Eliot (Wasteland, l.35-37, “You gave me hyacinths first a year ago…” etc.) and Colerige (Xanadu, l.2 “pleasure-dome” l.8 “And here were gardens…”) every single day and i say their lines over and over in my head and then when i write i write on one occasion a hyacinth and i put it in a garden next to the word pleasure and these associations are there for a because of which i know the linked clause: it’s because of Eliot and because of Colerige. but do i cite Eliot when i write hyacinth, Colerige when i write garden? no one does that. what is licit? what is lawless? what is madness? how do i get out of here—"turn in the door and turn once only"—out of the—"every hair / Is, hair of the head, numbered"—confusion? is there some known standard, some accepted—"dragging its slimy belly on the bank"—practice or professional boundary, to which—"in my craft or sullen art"—i can appeal and be known not to transgress? what “shall I do now? What shall I do?"—to get out of the—"since, no, nothing can be done” “O there’s none; no no no there’s none"—confusion? what do i cite and leave uncited in fiction?

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1. tobreakandblossom reblogged this from unopenablebox and added:

   veronica forrest-thomson has a killer poem about this:

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