To: The Giant of Albion

That's not true that a writer cannot capture a thing as it is. Wittgenstein was wrong. Great writers, that's what they do is capture the subject as it is. I got to admit, bringing up Wittgenstein when talking about poetry is amateurish. Wittgenstein was wrong about mostly everything he said. He's not the man I'd cite in a video about poetry. You were doing well up until that point. Wittgenstein is the other side of a nasty coin which dominates literary theory right now, and it's invariably false. Mostly due to readers' poor attention spans, bad ethics and lack of comprehension, that's why people believe it. But texts have definitive comprehension, and are understood beyond the literal words. They are also good at communicating the sense of how something actually is, and how it's perceived. That's generally the scope of all Sages in History, was attuning people to that fact. Confucius, Socrates, Pythagoras, Christ... All meant to say that a text has a universal sense, and ascribe to the Logos. As it is, Names have to be rectified. If they're not, that creates confusion and an inability to comprehend each other.

You, also, shouldn't steal. Borrowing the plot of Hercules or borrowing a theme from someone like Mathologer, is not theft. But you should never copy someone's idea. You need to transform everything you use.

You had two good pieces of advice, but derailed at Wittgenstein.

Borrowing themes such as alien bugs, underground cities and political manipulation from influential magnates, like in Star Ship Troopers, the Matrix and the Star Wars Prequels is not copying them. Or finding the Orc in Thomas Bulfinch and writing with that as an archetype. Because William Blake wrote similarly to me, and it's just because the Orc creates that archetype that it exists. That two writers, who know nothing about one another, can find it. It's the universality of communication. Which blows Wittgenstein's theories out of the water.

But, you're talking about "Copying". Artists shouldn't copy. They borrow things and elements from the universals of language as a construct, but they don't "Copy". Language describes only what's in the real world, and what's universally applicable to all human beings. And the building of contexts, and shared cultural heritages that allow a text to be fully understood. And using that, you can produce new works of literature.

Like, you got that idea about "Stealing" from T. S. Eliot, who wasn't actually stealing. He was borrowing quotations from his favorite poems, and transforming them into his own works, which corresponded with a large body of work. That's not "Theft" and that's not "Stealing" and that's not "Copying." He called it "Theft" but he meant it poetically. From borrowing the themes and elements. You should NEVER copy another artist. That's unlawful. There are universal strings of logos, and concepts that can be attained universally and without seeing other people. But, that's not the same as copying.

For instance Christ, Confucius and Plato can all find the concept of Logos. That's because it's a real concept that's discoverable. Just like the Laws of Mathematics. And there are human behavioral patterns, and underlying subconscious stratas and structures, that can be discovered. And that's what all artists do, is rediscover those old concepts, and communicate them to a new generation. But they never copy. Ever.