1938/05/01 by David Goodale, D. H. R. Goodale
Arts and Humanities · #Digital Humanities and Scholarship #Poetry Analysis and Criticism
paper · doi:10.2307/2920614
crossref issued 1938/05/01 · crossref published 1938/05/01 · crossref published-print 1938/05/01 · openalex publication_date 1938/05/01 · crossref created 2006/04/24 · crossref deposited 2018/05/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2025/11/06 · crossref indexed 2026/07/24
Do YOU ever think, Horace, what infernal plagiarists the big fellows are-big lawyers, big preachers, big writers-even Shakespeare, Longfellow: how much they borrow and never pay back ?1 Thus spoke Walt Whitman, who would probably have agreed with Poe that out of ten authors of established reputation, plunder recondite, neglected, or forgotten books. The purpose of this study is to indicate with a few examples what Whitman borrowed and never paid back. One example of Whitman's borrowing was brought to light by the discovery of an unidentified newspaper cutting about the burial of old Scandinavian heroes, found among the poet's collection of notes and clippings,2 by Richard M. Bucke, who pointed out that Whitman used this note almost verbatim in Salut au Monde!.: