I arch my wings toward the lofty deep while farmers curse and mothers weep Below me screams of smoking sheep And miles to burn before I sleep
Posted by dee_boncci (Member # 2733) on :
I wouldn't say it is plagarism in the strict sense, but for those familiar with Robert Frost the resemblence to "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" will be obvious. That might be the single most widely known work by an American poet, so a lot of people will recognize it as a "knockoff" and perhaps see it as a parody.
[This message has been edited by dee_boncci (edited May 02, 2010).]
Posted by andersonmcdonald (Member # 8641) on :
That's what it's intended to be, an obvious knock-off. It's just an opener to a short story. I was wondering what the laws were regarding publication.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
It's a parody, protected by custom and by Supreme Court rulings...but the estate of Robert Frost might sue you anyway.
Of course it's not a perfect parody...Frost repeated his last line, the "miles to go" one. You might consider a revision, repeating your last line, maybe lose either your second or third ones...
Posted by Pyre Dynasty (Member # 1947) on :
Weird Al isn't a plagiarist, and anyone who calls him one only shows their ignorance. I think you should be fine with this, allusion through structure is a honored tradition in poetry, all the poems in Alice in Wonderland are parodies of other poems. (The funny part about that is Jabberwocky and The Walrus and the Carpenter are much more well known than the poems they make fun of.)
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
As Pyre Dynasty said, it's allusion, and it's a time-honored tradition in writing. In fact, it's one of the coolest things you can do in a story because it works on one level for those who don't "get" the allusion, and it works on at least one more level for those who do (the additional levels for those who do could include things like double, or even triple, meanings because of the way the allusion plays off of the context in your story, and so on and so forth).
Posted by andersonmcdonald (Member # 8641) on :