Quotation marks do two things. They give credit, and they create distance.
In this edition of Collide, Marc Wilson asks what happens when quotation becomes plagiarism. In the creative industries, when are we building on what came before, and when are we just repeating it?
Sophie Baker questions the creative quotation inherent in the recent “Wuthering Heights” movie. She argues that the adaptation hollows out the book’s meaning and asks if it points to a loss of seriousness across our culture.
(Which reminds me… In 1968, on the night of Martin Luther King’s assassination, Senator Robert F. Kennedy quoted from the Greek poets, urging his countrymen:
to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.
I’m pushed to think of a contemporary politician who could respond to tragedy with such seriousness…)
Of course, RFK would never have known the words of the classic poets without someone to write them down. In his article, Damon Parkin reflects on a mind that’s constantly listening and scribing,
Enjoy our exploration of life from inside and outside the quotation marks.