Jonathan Lethem's "The ecstasy of influence"

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/02/0081387

Cleopatra was copied nearly verbatim from Plutarch's life of Mark Antony. T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land later was influenced by this. Are these examples of plagiarism? If so Jonathan Lethem states "then we want more plagiarism." Jonathan Lethem comments, "Most artists are brought to their vocation when their own nascent gifts are awakened by the work of a master." Lethem does not see plagiarism as a disadvantage. Those writers who are obsessed with it lose out. Most artists are just starting to flower new ideas. It is not until these artists are inspired by a master of their craft that they blossom. There needs to be some sort of influence. Without it writers would be left at a standstill with no starting point. Lethem in his piece notes how copyright has pratically become a known law between writers and artists. Jonathan Lethem sees copyright as an infringement and like Thomas Jefferson "an unneccessary evil." The act of "copying" in the 21st century has no meaningful distinction as it did in the past. Today, everyone makes copies. Each time we accept an emailed text or even send one we are making copies! Lethem addresses artists who care not to see the beauty in influence and inspiration. He says, "By doing so they make the world smaller, betraying what seems to me the primary motivation for participating in the world of culture in the first place: to make the world larger." Artists should not be making things more difficult by adding restrictions on creativity. Artists should be enriching themselves in the cultures of other artists. Any source could spark something within the artist to create something beautiful and remastered. A work can be augmented by the most passive user. Near the end of his piece Lethem affirms, "But the truth is that with artists pulling on one side and corporations pulling on the other, the loser is the collective public imagination from which we were nourished in the first place, and whose existence as the ultimate repository of our offerings makes the work worth doing in the first place." Lethem is concluding that in the end the imagination that artists shared would be diminished thus greatly affecting the whole population. We are all nourished by the work that artists form. In turn the population is the reason that artists write and create. In order to share their work with the world.