Dear list members,
It seems that this “plagiarism letter” becomes a media event. Well, a mission of media is to lift a fact out of context and emphasise it; it seems that the Society may do the opposite work and examine the fact in the context.
(For me, a good example of such examination was a letter of Alastair Wilson (“The Coward”, February, 13, 2012) concerning John Kipling and "the intriguing proposition” that “Kipling (burdened with guilt about the death of his son) may even have identified himself with the condemned man.")
By the way, I think that the situation with this letter is fertile in resources, so to say. I do not mean Kipling’s “confession” in the letter specifically; according to the place, time and circumstances one may suppose that Kipling was simply teased a ’Dear Madam’. But the letter, in particular, may give an interesting information for NRG.
Personally, I am admired the way Kipling converts in his works virtually everything around him - places and place-names, events and names, newspaper information, book citations, etc, etc, etc.
I’d like to note that, to my thinking, in situations like that it would be much better to comment on Kipling himself than to comment a columnist commenting on Kipling.
With my regards,
Yan Shapiro
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