Posner Revisions

Shakespeare and Plagiarism
William Shakespeare is one of the greatest writers in the history of the world. He has contributed countless works of art to the English world. Some of these works have been stamped as being plagiarized though.
The earliest man known to accuse Shakespeare of plagiarizing was Robert Greene. Greene was a well known English author in the 1500's. Even though many did not know who Shakespeare was at this point in his life, Greene was jealous of Shakespeare. Greene decided to write a pamphlet about how he believed Shakespeare was a plagiarist. The name of this pamphlet is Worth of Wit.
One work that could have possibly been plagiarized was Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's life of Marc Antony. Shakespeare's was called Antony and Cleopatra.
If Shakespeare did plagiarize, why was he not taken to court or fined or even thrown in jail. Posner may possibly say it the best.
"The standard reason given for why it is not plagiarism is that in Shakespeare's time, unlike our, creativity was understood to be improvement rather than originality - in other words, creative imagination."

Group-Dustmites