{"id":70,"date":"2007-05-22T07:28:59","date_gmt":"2007-05-22T11:28:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/library.duke.edu\/blogs\/scholcomm\/2007\/05\/22\/literary-influence\/"},"modified":"2011-03-23T18:35:27","modified_gmt":"2011-03-23T18:35:27","slug":"literary-influence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.library.duke.edu\/scholcomm\/2007\/05\/22\/literary-influence\/","title":{"rendered":"Helprin, Chaucer and literary influence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several colleagues have asked me if I don\u2019t have some pithy and devastating response to make to the opinion piece by Mark Helprin in Sunday\u2019s New York Times, A Great Idea Lives Forever. Shouldn\u2019t its Copyright?<\/a>\u00a0 In some ways the best refutation of Helprin\u2019s editorial is simply to consider its title carefully.\u00a0 Do we really want great ideas owned by individuals forever?\u00a0 While copyright does not, of course, protect ideas, perpetual copyright would vastly increase the amount of litigation needed for any new work of creativity in order to prove that its dependence on all that had preceded it was on the correct side of the idea \/ expression line. What a powerful weapon the James Joyce estate would wield to suppress criticism and scholarship for many, many more years if Helprin got his wish.<\/p>\n

Should Boccaccio have been able to sue Chaucer to establish that only ideas and not expression were appropriated when Chaucer wrote his \u201cderivative works?\u201d\u00a0 Without literary borrowing, the great works of world literature would not have been possible; Chaucer could not have written The Canterbury Tales<\/em> and Mark Helprin could not have written\u2026 whatever Mark Helprin has written.\u00a0 Then there is the culture of remix and parody fostered by the Internet — a whole new kind of creativity that should not be stifled in its infancy.\u00a0 So perhaps the most appropriate response to Helprin is to read another recent article that celebrates the interplay and interpenetration of cultural creation, The Ecstasy of Influence by Jonathan Lethem<\/a>, which appeared in Harpers in February 2007.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several colleagues have asked me if I don\u2019t have some pithy and devastating response to make to the opinion piece by Mark Helprin in Sunday\u2019s New York Times, A Great Idea Lives Forever. Shouldn\u2019t its Copyright?\u00a0 In some ways the best refutation of Helprin\u2019s editorial is simply to consider its title carefully.\u00a0 Do we really … Continue reading Helprin, Chaucer and literary influence<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authors-rights","category-copyright-issues-and-legislation"],"yoast_head":"\nHelprin, Chaucer and literary influence - Scholarly Communications @ Duke<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.library.duke.edu\/scholcomm\/2007\/05\/22\/literary-influence\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Helprin, Chaucer and literary influence - Scholarly Communications @ Duke\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Several colleagues have asked me if I don\u2019t have some pithy and devastating response to make to the opinion piece by Mark Helprin in Sunday\u2019s New York Times, A Great Idea Lives Forever. 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