In 2007, award-winning author Jonathan Lethem (Motherless Brooklyn, The Fortress of Solitude) wrote an essay for Harper’s entitled The Ecstasy of Influence.
In it, Lethem champions a plea for the arts to embrace a ‘gift economy’ whereby artists could give and take from the works of their peers in order to foster an evolution of their own ideas and values.
The twist? The entire essay is plagiarised.
“The kernel, the soul—let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances—is plagiarism … Don’t pirate my editions; do plunder my visions. The name of the game is Give All. You, reader, are welcome to my stories. They were never mine in the first place, but I gave them to you.”
Though Lethem did revise some lines to ensure they suited his needs, the essay as a whole perfectly represents the artist’s reliance on influence in the development of their work.
You can read the essay here. For those interested, Lethem cites all the sources from which he took his words on the final page.