Harper's accuses MIT scholar of plagiarism

Bakersfield Californian ^ | 4/18/05 | AP - MIT

[NormsRevenge]

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - A Massachusetts Institute of Technology literary scholar said he regrets failing to credit some passages in his biography of the poet E.E. Cummings, but denied charges of plagiarism.

An article in the Harper's magazine issue scheduled to arrive at newsstands Tuesday accuses Christopher Sawyer-Laucanno of "wholesale borrowing" from the 1980 book "Dreams in the Mirror: A Biography of E.E. Cummings," by Richard S. Kennedy.

Sawyer-Laucanno's book, "E.E. Cummings, A Biography," was published last fall. He said in Monday's Boston Globe that he regrets what he called an oversight in documenting his sources, but insisted the mistakes were unintentional.

"I deeply regret that I missed what I missed," Sawyer-Laucanno said. "But while I clearly missed a few citations, I am not willing to admit to plagiarism."

E.E. (Edward Estlin) Cummings, who lived from 1894 to 1962, was one of the country's most popular poets; his name is often rendered in lowercase.

The 10-page review by Wyatt Mason, a literary critic and contributing editor to Harper's, says Sawyer-Laucanno's book is "jammed with instances of wholesale borrowing, not only of research but of storytelling and language."

According to Mason's article, Kennedy wrote: "Esther Lanman organized a cocktail party for Cummings with as many of the old Cambridge crowd as she could locate. Amy Gozzaldi was there, her jet-black hair now grey. She and (Cummings) looked at each other and grinned self-consciously, feeling what the years had done to them. He raised his hand to his bald head."

Sawyer-Laucanno wrote: "Lanman even organized a cocktail party for Cummings, inviting every member of the 'old gang' she could round up, including Cummings's first crush, Amy de Gozzaldi. Her hair, once jet black, was now gray and Cummings, now fifty-eight, had finally gone bald. They looked at each other self-consciously, then grinned."

An MIT spokeswoman wouldn't comment on the accusations, saying school officials only recently learned of them, the Globe said.

"There is no issue of plagiarism, none," said Sawyer-Laucanno's publisher, Dominique Raccah of Sourcebooks, an Illinois publishing house. "Calling a few missed citations plagiarism grossly exaggerates the mistakes."

A writer-in-residence who has taught at MIT for 23 years, the 54-year-old Sawyer-Laucanno said his book includes 1,406 footnotes, including 28 references to Kennedy's book. Kennedy died in 2002.

[NormsRevenge]

oh tree

oh tree

how pretty thee be

with a scholarly plagiarist

hanging from thee

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i made it up. seriesly. ;-)

[eno_]

I had no idea MIT had "literary scholars."