possible plagiarism

[Deborah Hoffman]

This is just a thought - something about this excerpt seems "older," i.e. "dull beasts," and the fact that the author felt no need to disclaim the gender relation in "Tanya was something they could possess: “
we all regarded her as something of our own." I'm wondering if it's a physical book in your university library - the kind I might have consulted as an undergrad before the Internet, something not likely to have been uploaded onto Google. I agree the translation can be a clue, especially the use of "kringel" rather than "pretzel" which I've seen elsewhere.
   
  On Apr 4, 2008, at 5:29 AM, Kevin M. F. Platt wrote:

> Dear SEELANGers:
>
> One of my students turned this piece of writing in for a weekly  
> reading response question about Gorky's "26 men and a girl" (I
asked
  
> them what they thought the significance of Tanya is in the story).
I
  
> am 95% certain that it is plagiarized, but I can't figure out from
  
> where. Does anyone recognize it as their own or as something on  
> their shelves? Let me know off line, please.
>
> This short story, published in 1899 in a collection entitled,  
> “Creatures that Once Were Men,” is an unflinching look at the
manner  
> in which men react to a crushing, stifling regime and how their  
> humanity is essentially dissolved over time. Tanya plays the role
of
  
> innocence, of hope, and of the possibility of redemption for the  
> twenty-six men in this narrative. Though “dull beasts,” the
twenty- 
> six are “still men, and, like all men, could not live without  
> worshipping something or other.” Living in a situation that
offered
  
> no returns for their labor, Tanya was something they could
possess:  
> “
we all regarded her as something of our own, something
existing
as  
> it were only by virtue of our kringels.” She carries the burden
of
  
> unrequited love without the knowledge or responsibility, a love so
  
> deep it could just as easily crush its receiver as its giver.
> The capitalistic exploitation in this story appears to extend  
> forever – the prisoners appear to be eternally trapped in a
static
  
> state, where nothing changes around them. Their humanity is kept  
> intact by Tanya’s fleeting presence, the hope she represents  
> flitting in and out of their lives, only taking, never giving. At
  
> the end of Gorky’s tale, Tanya is revealed to be nothing more
than
a  
> servant to the gold-embroiderers’ next door, the innocence she  
> represents extinguished in a moment of sexual passion. The men  
> return to their state of perpetual labor as Tanya is thrown aside,
  
> crushed by their desire for an ideal.



Deborah Hoffman, Esq.
Russian > English Legal and Literary Translations

A man ceases to be a beginner in any given science and becomes a master in that science when he has learned that he is going to be a beginner all his life. -- R. G. Collingwood

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