Poetic license

“ I WONDER why some things are? For instance. Art is allowed as much indecent license to-day as in earlier times—but the privileges of Literature in this respect have been sharply curtailed within the past eighty or ninety years. ”

“ That the identity of a literary composition consists entirely in the sentiment and the language. The same conception, clothed in the same words, must necessarily be the same composition; and whatever method be taken to exhibit that composition to the ear or to the eye of another, by recital, by writing, or by printing, in any number of copies, or at any period of time, it is always the identical work of the author which is so exhibited; and no other man, it has been thought, can have a right to exhibit it, especially for profit, without the author's consent. ”

“ And I may add that not only the revival of old, but the invention of new words, if sparingly resorted to, is among the least contestable of poetic licences—a licence freely recognized by Horace, elaborately maintained by Dryden, and tacitly sanctioned, age after age, by the practice of every poet by whom our language has been enriched. ”

“ In works of art executed with movements accompanied with music, shows accompanied with music and all similar works, the author of the part other than the musical part shall have the right to license to others the public performance of the whole work, its execution and making copies thereof. ”

“ Wherefore, seeing that poets have a license allowed them that is not allowed unto the writers of prose, and seeing also that they who write in rhyme are simply poets in the vulgar tongue, it becomes fitting and reasonable that a larger license should be given to these than to other modern writers; and that any metaphor or rhetorical similitude which is permitted unto poets, should also be counted not [110] unseemly in the rhymers of the vulgar tongue. ”

“ History, Biography, and works of fiction all contribute their share; while poetry enjoys the cumulative privilege of uniting in itself the incentives to Art which are commanded by all other branches of Literature as well as the ennobling sentiments inspired by religion, patriotism and other affections of the human heart. An elevating mission, indeed, be it only directed in a worthy course. Frivolity and license are alike the bane of literature and art. ”

“ From ancient Greek tragedy and sculpture to medieval poetry and classical music, the arts have always been developed through a cycle: invention of a canon, development within the canon, offshoot of a new canon. You either learn an existing means of expression, or you invent a new means yourself. But you still have to follow some rules so that your creation will fit into a cultural context. This makes your work readable, visible, understandable, recognizable, and so forth.
The third set of rules is really mysterious. It is concerned with the “dictatorship” of the author’s own work. ”

“ The freedom and copiousness with which our most original writers, in former periods, availed themselves of the productions of their predecessors, frequently transcribing whole passages, without scruple or acknowledgment, may appear contrary to the etiquette of modern literature, when the whole stock of poetical common-places has become public property, and no one is compelled to trade upon any particular author. ”

“ There is, you surely realize, a certain amount of artistic falsification—or should I simply call it 'artistic license'?—employed in reproducing facsimiles of living objects. Therefore, in order to sell our goods we always attempt to offer a living example of our product. ”

“ For all that, if I can be of any service to you I am heartily at your disposal.”
“You, sir, can serve me,” I replied, “for at this moment I too feel something of the poetic fire of which you speak, although, unlike yourself, laying no claims to poetic fame. I am naturally endowed with a voice and song which together violate all the old rules of art.”
“I myself have forgotten the rules. Genius may not be fettered, her flights are far beyond all that is stiff and formal in schools of art.” ”

“ The license, if license it be, of perfection in the echo of a rhyme is forbidden only, and wrongly, by English critics. The emendation "slight" for "light" is absurd.
In the eighteenth stanza of the first part of the "Sensitive Plant" there is a line impossible to reduce to rule, but not obscure in its bearing. ”

“ Creative work is to be encouraged and rewarded, but private motivation must ultimately serve the cause of promoting broad public availability of literature, music, and the other arts. The immediate effect of our copyright law is to secure a fair return for an `author's' creative labor. ”

“ But while we refuse to any artist on any plea the license to infringe in the least article the letter of this law, to overlook or overpass it in the pursuit of any foreign purpose, we do not refuse to him the liberty of bringing within the range of it any subject that under these conditions may be so brought and included within his proper scope of work. ”

“ For although all such similes, and colors, and expressions, appropriately, introduced, are equally allowable in every poetical composition, and none of them need be rejected, still the exclusive use of any one class of them as a law would hamper the free poetic spirit and extinguish the living fancy. ”

“ This is what happens with a creator. His inner and outer interlocutors are always clandestine coauthors in any work of art. Once more, who owes whom?
The author is as much a contributor as a recipient in both the outer and inner dialogues. In fact, the hidden interlocutor is representative of the audience in general. The author and the audience have equal positions in the creation of the artwork. The more creative a work is, the more it implements others’ ideas. Over and over—who owes whom? Each owes the other.
Creator and Culture So mankind and the creator are on par. ”

“ Again, the freedom of the author’s inner speech is crucial for the creative process. A creator is as talented as he is free.
Culture: Sum of Works and Beyond We already touched upon the question of whether or not there is an “art” as such, i.e., art beyond works of art. We assumed there must paradoxically exist some generic thought patterns, some ideas representing art. They exist, but one cannot point at such a pattern in reality. They work as engines, producing new elements of humanity such as thoughts, ideas, forms of expression and even new human behavior. ”

“ These faces present the development of human ways of life or ways of thinking, dialogue, creativity, and freedom. This last feature is the one I want to concentrate on now.
Culture and freedom presuppose one another at all dimensions. I mentioned already that an author must feel utterly free to build a new world. This is true with respect to ideas, emotions, art forms, techniques, genres, personages, events, chunks of other works of other authors, use of language, etc. A work of art represents a new world and, at the same time, is a form of dialogue. ”

“ Howsoever extravagant he may be in his notions of poetic licence, that licence is never with him a synonym for licentiousness. Whatever is tender and true, whatever is chivalrous and high-minded, he loves at first sight, and reproduces it lovingly. And it may be possible that his own estimate of his poems was not altogether wrong ”

“ Every one is talking—many poets, poeticules, and poetasters are writing—what they call "free verse." Let there be no mistake about one thing. Free verse that is flabby, in-organic, shapelessly obvious, is as much of a crime against poetry as the cheapest echo of a Masefield that any doggerel scribbler ever strummed. ”

“ They have been the property of the Theatre so long, and so many rising geniuses have enlarged or altered them, inserting a speech or a whole scene, or adding a song, that no man can any longer claim copyright in this work of numbers. Happily, no man wishes to. ”

“ Every house has its book-closet, and every town its public library. The universal prevalence of intelligence, and that self-respect which is imparted by the democratic principle, have caused a great increase of writers. Yet, owing to the absence of a just system of copyright, the rewards of literary exertion are so precarious, that but a small number devote to letters their entire attention. A high degree of excellence, especially in poetry, can be attained only by constant and quiet study and cultivation. ”

“ The national tastes and feelings are fashioned by the subjects of kings; and they will continue to be so, until, by an honest and politic system of reciprocal copyright, such protection is given to the native mind as will enable men of the first order of genius to devote themselves to authorship. Literature, not less than wealth, adds to a nation's happiness and greatness; the man of letters should receive as much of the fostering care of the government as is extended to the agriculturist or the manufacturer.
There are, connected with this country, no lack of subjects for poetry and romannce. ”

“ The unsettled state of copyright legislation and the progress of communistic ideas in relation to literary property give interest to all intelligent discussion of the nature and extent of literary rights. ”

“ We can even put it this way: the more talented an author is, the more independently his creation acts. If we agree that an imagined world is, in a sense, a living one, then we see it as independent—independently acting and independently developing. In short, the main rule for a creator is paradoxical: be free to follow your creation!
Creating as Dialogue All right, a talented author allows his creation to live according to its own laws. Now, let us recall that a piece of art is a message. Thus, the talent of a creator consists in allowing his creation to speak for itself. ”

“ The copyright in a book, the performing right in a dramatic or musical work, and the lecturing right in a lecture, shall subsist for the term of forty-two years or for the author's life and seven years whichever shall last the longer. ”

“ You have written your lyrics, and you have fashioned your melody, or you have found a composer who is anxious to make his melody fit your lyrics so perfectly that they have been fused into a unity so complete that it seems all you have to do to start everybody whistling it is to find a publisher. ”

“ That if your honourable house should not recognise that inherent right which every author has in his intellectual productions, your petitioner humbly begs that the law, as at present constituted, may be stripped of that unjust and partial character, by which young authors receive a higher boon than those who are aged and infirm, and by which works of easy and rapid composition receive a more enduring privilege than those of great research and erudition. ”

“ A musical score is definitely a writing, for it is even more than a literary manuscript, originally in the personal handwriting of the composer himself, without the intervention of a stenographer or a typewriting machine. Therefore, if the narrowest meaning of the word ' writings ' should be interpreted into the Constitution such as would exclude sculptures and other works which are admittedly proper and legal subjects of copyright, it would still specifically include musical and dramatic as well as literary manuscripts. ”

“ We may decide then with certainty that the sphere of poetry lies in Imagination, and that the larger the amount of just liberty the Imagination enjoys, the better will be the poetry it produces. But then a further question arises, and this is the key of the whole position, How far does this liberty extend? Is Imagination absolute, supreme, and uncontrolled in its own sphere, or is it under the guidance and government of reason? ”

“ But the license, being an accurate generalisation, holds its place in the art, and the laws have to be modified to meet it, and ultimately men either forget that it was ever called a license or stand in amazement at the stupidity of their predecessors ”

“ One has a right to sell one’s ideas, to barter one’s literary inventions; one has a right, a duty it may be, to invent inventions for sale; but one may not, without sure damnation, make “copy” of one’s emotions. In other words, one may not invent emotions, nor observations either, for the literary trade. The sad case with much of our nature-writing is that it has become professional, and so insincere, not answering to genuine observation nor to genuine emotion, but to the bid of the publisher.
You will know the sincere nature-writer by his fidelity to fact. ”

“ But regardless of how well we think the image of individual creativity fits literature, it fits very poorly in music where so much creativity is recognizably more collective and additive, and where much of the raw material used by subsequent creators is potentially covered by copyright. 7
So how does the accretive process of musical creativity fare in the modern law and culture of copyright? How would the great musical traditions of the twentieth century—jazz, soul, blues, rock—have developed under today's copyright regime? ”

“ There is no thing of beauty that does not conform to a law of order and beauty—poem, story, costume, picture, statue, all fall into an ascertainable law of art. Nothing of man's making is perfect, but any creation approximates perfection in the measure that it conforms to inevitable law.
To ascertain this law, and apply it, in art or in literature, to the changing conditions of our progressive life, is the business of the artist. It is the business of the critic to mark how the performance conforms to or departs from the law evolved and transmitted in the long-experience of the race. ”

“ If it be a dramatic work he may (10) convert it into a novel or other non-dramatic form or (11) perform or represent it, or (as in 5) vend any manuscript or record thereof, or (12) make or cause to be made any transcription or record thereof; or (13) exhibit, perform, produce, or reproduce it in any manner or by any method; or
If it be a musical work he may (14) arrange or (15) adapt it, or (as in 11) perform it publicly for profit, or (16) make any arrangement or (17) setting of the melody in any notation or by any form of record (the last subject to the license provision of the statute) ”