originality

originality and value

by F.N.Sibley

IN RECENT times the high, even paramount, importance of originality in art has often been proclaimed. This importance has as often been questioned or denied. In what follows I assume 'originality' and 'novelty' to be used interchangeably. Similarly, with 'worth', 'value' and 'merit'.

How can reputable thinkers produce such diversity of apparently conflicting views? Either most must be wrong or we are facing a multiplicity of meanings and equivocations. I believe the latter to be true: interpreted appropriately, many, even if not all, of the views mentioned capture some truth. But showing this requires more distinctions than the disputants usually recognize. Evaluating art, in Osborne's words, 'involves a concept of excellence as well as one of novelty although the connection between the two has not been clearly worked out and has seldom been made explicit'. To part of this task this paper is addressed.

I examine therefore some of the meanings of 'original'. (Inevitably in an area where meanings merge my distinctions will be over-sharp.) Other meanings I ignore: e.g., when 'an original Rembrandt' means a genuine Rembrandt and when 'original' means 'first' or 'prototype' as in 'the original Model T Ford'. More important, I try to bypass certain much discussed issues that are easily entangled with my present topic: I am nowhere concerned with forgeries, nor, in so far as I can avoid them, with questions about copies as such and their value in relation to originals. I discuss originality, and any value it may have or result in, when being original involves, in various ways, being new and different, something a partial or inexact copy can certainly be even if a perfect copy cannot.

To begin, let us try: something is original if, when produced, it differs qualitatively from anything existing previously. For my purposes I shall restrict this immediately: to productions by animate beings (to exclude, e.g., differently shaped rocks thrown up by an eruption); also to things made with some degree of deliberate direction (to exclude, e.g., doodlings that differ from anything existing before). A more important restriction is that, to be original, a production must differ from anything previously existing in relevant ways; it might differ in some ways yet not count as original. Which differences are relevant will vary case by case. A dress or a car made exactly like another except, respectively, for size or colour will not count as original designs. A theory giving the same explanation of a phenomenon as an earlier but differently worded theory lacks the originality under consideration. Yet obviously, in other cases, size, colour, or wording might be relevant indeed.

Unquestionably 'original' is used in some such way(O,), and wholly non-evaluative. Phlogiston theory was original at some time. But a theory is evaluated according to some purpose; it can be original but worthless for that or any other purpose. Any of us could write an original poem, different from any existing poem in the respects we consider relevant, but in point of poetic value worthless. Inventions of worthless ingenuity and originality abound; the Patent Office is full of them. 'It's certainly original, but utterly without value' need embody no absurdity.

It seems evident then that 'original', whether O, or O, is used non- evaluative:even two identical but independently produced works, if they occurred, could be aesthetically entirely worthless. But it seems equally obvious that we use 'original' in evaluative ways: often in calling a work original a speaker clearly means to attribute to it some, even considerable, merit (in our case, aesthetic or artistic). If a critic that I respect speaks of the originality of someone's latest poems, I may justifiably anticipate finding them worth reading. If they prove worthless, though they are the poet's own work and different from any other poems, I may feel let down, so often is 'original' used to attribute value as well. When we say a man's originality flagged, that his later work lacks the originality of his earlier work, we do not mean that he kept writing identical poems or sonatas, nor yet that he produced strings of rather similar but very fine works; we usually mean that his later work was of lesser or indifferent quality.

So 'original', used evaluative (O), I shall take to mean new, different, uncopied, one's own work, etc. and of some value; using it this way one will not call a work original, however different it is, if it is without merit.

First however some comments on relevant differences; these, with art works, are whatever gives a work a different aesthetic character. It might seem that we should speak rather of whatever makes a difference in aesthetic value, for many of our questions concerning originality are about value or merit. But not without excluding a possible ambiguity first. Two Titian portraits of the same period, both fine works, similar in style and approach, are yet different; each has aesthetic value, but neither is a substitute for the other since each has a different aesthetic character, offers a different aesthetic experience, and therefore has a different specific value. Indeed, art works differing in aesthetic character, if of value, must have different aesthetic values.

But in another sense they could have the same, i.e., equal, value, neither being obviously more aesthetically valuable than the other. Giotto's Death of St Francis and Masaccio's Adam and Eve Expelled from Paradise clearly have differentaesthetic values, but one might understandably hesitate to say that either had greater value than the other (though not to say that both had greater aesthetic value than any Whistler nocturne or Beerbohm cartoon). Similarly, with Mozart's Requiem and the Missa Solemnis (vis-d-vis, say,Auld Lang Syne). Despite some theorists' qualms, the same is true across different arts. We might hesitate over ranking works with specific values as different as those of Wolf's Auch kleine Dinge and Frith's Derby Day,but not question either's aesthetic superiority to Julia Moore's elegy on John Robinson.

So two works may have roughly the same, i.e., equal, aesthetic value; but if they have different aesthetic characters, not inter-substitutable, each has a different specific value. The specific characters of works will differ in turn according to the different basic features that give them those characters. (This is typically so with art works, but not with everything. Two different inventions, methods, say, of saving fuel, being equally effective, simple, safe, inexpensive and durable, have equal value but, having identical function, exhibit no contrast between equal value and different specific value. One could be substituted for the other without loss.)

I believe the terminology used will serve my present turn. The basic features which give a work its specific character include at least the selection and ordering of words in a poem, lines and colours in a painting, notes in a musical composition, etc. without excluding other possible factors over the inclusion of which theorists may dispute. The aesthetic character of a work is the quality or assemblage of qualities in virtue of which it may be aesthetically praised or condemned - its grace, serenity, dynamism, gaiety, balance, unity, vividness, psychological perceptiveness, profundity, banality, sentimentality, etc. By specific aesthetic character I mean that, e. g., Shylock's speeches are an expression of hatred distinctively different from that of Iago's speeches, the perfect balance of a particular Veronese canvas is not that of a Palladian building or even of another Veronese, the particular serenity of the close of the Goldberg Variations is not that either of a Claude sunset or of Beethoven's Op. 111 Adagio, and so on. So each work with a different specific aesthetic character is in some degree original and, if it has any aesthetic value at all, has a new, different, original specific aesthetic value. That is one link between originality and value.

I can now take up, but only schematically, some of the more common and less strict uses of 'original' and 'unoriginal'. Since in using either word we are ordinarily dealing with matters of degree and by our various uses pick out positions further or less far along a continuum of difference, one way to understand the use on a given occasion is to consider what point or contrast is being made. I shall restrict myself to two sorts of contrast for the moment and number them as distinct uses. This makes matters look more tidy than they are, but the selections are not entirely arbitrary.

First, we may call a work original (O) when it differs considerably, but not toto cab, from previous works. (The contrast is with works which differ, but not appreciably, from what has gone before; which have a close affinity or resemblance to previous work, no notable individuality, are stereotypes, predictable, routine, follow a formula, are all of a kind, mere modifications, even rehashes, etc.) We might use 'original' thus of any of Mozart's last three symphonies-they are distinctively different works-but withhold it perhaps from some dozens of Vivaldi or Telemann pieces. Since a work may differ

considerably from others yet be of either insignificant or high merit, we may use Oneutrally, implying only difference, or evaluative (O3J: in calling Mozart's last symphony original one would normally be attributing value as well as considerable difference. Thus a work that is O^, being considerably different in character, will have a new specific value; but how high or low this value is will be independent of its degree of difference. 'Unoriginal', the opposite of O, meaningmuch like, lacking notably individuality, etc., need not exclude value (though we have a pejorative use too); but any value it allows will be a specific value rather similar to that of some previous work. Thus each of the Titian portraits of a given period, like the later Mozart symphonies, is original both neutrally (O) and evaluative (O).

Each offers something considerably different with a different specific value; and we would probably no more wish to substitute one for another than if, wanting the Eroica,we were offered the Pastoral instead. But with a dozen of the Vivaldi or Telemann pieces, though the aesthetic experiences they offer differ somewhat and may even have consider- able aesthetic value, we might think, understandably, that they are similar enough in character and specific value and, wishing to enjoy the kind of experience they offer, be moderately indifferent about substitutions. If things, including art works, are similar enough we may not unreasonably decide that any one will do.

Secondly, we might locate a stronger yet still familiar use of 'original' much further along the scale of difference. We use this to mark works that are extremely different, innovative or revolutionary: Beethoven's late works, those of Giotto, Blake, Wagner, Cezanne, Joyce, Kandinsky, Schoenberg, Stockhausen. However different from one another the cited Mozart symphonies (or the Titian portraits) are, they inhabit, we say, the same world of experience and employ nearly enough the same styles and techniques. This stronger use of 'original', meaning extremely innovatory or revolutionary, is not applicable to the last of Mozart's great symphonies or the last of the middle period Titians. But works which are not original in this extreme way will include those, and they may be very fine, that exhibit more moderate or gradual development, change, advance, as well as those deserving the sometimes pejorative adjectives, 'traditional', 'conservative', or 'academic'; but they no more need be routine or predictable or stereotypes or lacking individuality than the Mozarts or Titians are.

Clearly, there is a familiar evaluative use of 'original' (O) when it attributes both extreme difference in this way and value ('highly original but worthless' then rings oddly); but, in so far as this is understood merely as a conjunction, there is no reason so far to suppose that extremely innovative works that have aesthetic merit must have great rather than slight merit, or that greater originality in this sense implies greater merit. But it is worth stressing that 'original', meaning extremely different and innovative, is also often used quite neutrally (O). Things original in this extreme way may have no value, or only the most trivial beyond the excitement of novelty for its own sake. Certainly there are reasons, emphasized by some, why any activity exhibiting novelty, experiment, change, seen as an indication of life, alertness, spontaneity as against the lifeless and unimaginative, may be valued and the more valued the greater it is. Activity may be valued independently of the value of its products, if any. But theorists and critics who talk as if any product, any art work, which is extremely original (O) must have aesthetic value, even high value, are surely failing to recognize that this neutral use occurs.

This aesthetically neutral 'original' is very commonly used of style, manner, technique, medium; Cubism, Abstract Expressionism, Pointillism, the twelve-tone system exemplifies large innovations, highly original. But there can be valuable and worthless work in any style or technique. In themselves, these were extremely original but aesthetically quite neutral: no one might-though fortunately some did-produce works of aesthetic value employing them. The value of such innovations is instrumental; it lies in what new aesthetic characters and values they render possible; but is easily forgotten that some innovations in style, technique and medium, by the very limits they impose, open up and make possible little of aesthetic significance. Their importance is that, when they do yield works of value, the character of such works will be different, in look, sound, or whatever, and their specific value will be new and original, whether it is high or low. (Obviously, in calling innovatory styles, techniques, forms, etc. 'instrumental', 'means' to creation of aesthetic character and value, I am not asserting a merely external, but an indispensable and internal, connection.

The aesthetic character of Pierrot Lunaire, whether one rates its value high or low, could not be achieved by the techniques of Scarlatti or Beethoven, the sting of Pope's couplets by blank verse, Rembrandt's exploration of character in mobiles or Wagner's emotional world without chromaticism.) So the enthusiastic praise often lavished on works employing innovatory techniques, new stylistic tricks, novelties of form or medium is misplaced unless these bring, or have the potential to bring, some new aesthetic character of value. In this respect those who inveigh against the cult of the original are right; but equally, those are wrong who decry any extreme stylistic or technical innovation before assessing what is being done with it or what might be, what new worlds of aesthetic experience are opened up. Who could have foreseen the glories to be achieved, faced with the first stumbling efforts in sonnet form or the first essays in pictorial perspective?

Three additional comments. First, 'original' has other uses that cut across those so far mentioned and identifiable by the opposites with which they contrast. Within the oeuvre of one artist later works may be unoriginal (or original), technically, stylistically, or in aesthetic character, by being (or not being) self-repetitive, etc. Between different artists works of the later one may be unoriginal (or-original), technically, stylistic, ugly, or in aesthetic character, by being (or not being) derivative, etc. even very innovative works may be influenced by, based on, or variants of, previous works: variations on the Three Graces theme, the eclecticism of Stravinsky, the influence of African art on Picasso, and so on endlessly.

Thirdly, something that requires at least brief mention here-The meanings of 'original' I began with, (O,), relevantly different from things previously existing, and (O), a creator's own invention, and all those mentioned since are relative simply to what has preceded. Such kinds of originality (and unoriginality) are unaffected by passage of time and later creations: once original, always original. We can say, timelessly, that Giotto's frescos or Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony exhibit great originality; they break with the past, constitute new beginnings. But we also sometimes use 'original' to mean 'nothing relevantly similar now exists'. As soon as something does, a thing is original no longer.

We may use it thus of forms, styles and techniques: the symphony was original in the eighteenth century, Cubism in 1920; they no longer are. Also of the generic character of works: tragedy was original in the fifth century, Wagner investigated aspects of eroticism and Baudelaire aspects of evil not before attempted; many have done the same since, so explorations of these aspects of experience are no longer original. Perhaps we should eschew 'original' here and replace it by 'novel' or 'new'. But 'novel' more often hints at the trivial, the gimmicky, the mere thrill of the new, the quickly exhausted than 'original' does. Osborne suggested some such difference when, attacking the cult of originality, he spoke of 'originality in the sense of novelty'. Perhaps it is easier to think of novelty as not impervious to time and something that cannot last. Hence Osborne can add, 'A work of art which is novel today may well be old hat tomorrow'. But it is presumably things of small value, easily spawning imitations, that rapidly become, with their progeny, "old hat and therefore negligible; their novelty value gone, their true worth is exposed. Moreover, this point about novelty is distinct from the issue raised by Osborne's next sentence,

Secondly, nothing I have said denies that that a work's 'very excellence may contribute to the speed with which it becomes familiar'. These are interesting points, but quite unrelated: becoming familiar through excellence is worlds away from becoming old hat through loss of novelty. And, as Osborne indicates, neither is strictly relevant to what I have taken to be the central question. What Giotto or Michelangelo or Petrarch initiated and achieved may by now be utterly familiar, the aesthetic veins they explored exhausted, much that they introduced long since traditional, much imitated, and we may want no more of it. But they have not become old hat.

Even if their achievements had been surpassed their work would remain original in a crucial sense and will never be otherwise. What may have rendered much recent art old hat is the facility with which certain methods, techniques and styles have been re-used and the limited aesthetic character and value achievable by using them. Having once absorbed what they can offer, if we rate its value low there is little reward in returning to it or having more of it produced. But questions about temporary novelty or about familiarity do not bear on the central question: whether any originality that is time-impervious is relevant, and if so how, to the merit of any art work, great or small, familiar or unfamiliar.

I have distinguished various uses of 'original', its conceptual associates and opposites. I have not multiplied them beyond necessity-indeed there are others-though I have admittedly drawn sharp lines where often there are only merging's. If we look closely enough at how we talk, we find that something like these differing uses do occur and are needed for our various interests and purposes. With these distinctions made, and some misplaced enthusiasms about the value of originality questioned, some more central but not unfamiliar thoughts about its value must be faced.

We cannot blink the fact that much of our knowledge and appreciation of aesthetic excellence comes from photos, reproductions or television. In certain traditions, without attempting exact copying, artists have produced successions of near-identical works, Buddha's, icons, vases. A line, a texture, the size may differ slightly. But often the predominant aesthetic character, smiling serenity, sublime stillness, grace, or whatever, is all but identical. Originality, if it involves significant difference, is absent. In the neutral senses mentioned, originality is necessary (but not sufficient), as I have said, only for new or different specific values. Whole cultures seem to have been relatively indifferent to these; even we are happy sometimes to see the world fuller of beautiful or moving, even if aesthetically indistinguishable, things. But many societies, including ours, seek variety, breadth of aesthetic experience, varied and new aesthetic values, works that reflect our changing times, varying perceptions and contemporary insights. Hence part of the importance of and demand for originality.

To deal with this I shall use the notion of intrinsic value in, I hope, a familiar enough way, from whatever value it has as influence on later artists or trends, for historical explanation of subsequent developments, etc. It seems difficult to operate without allowing that any poem, say, has certain merits, is aesthetically fine, poor, or indifferent whether anyone ever reads it or not, for it is its merit that a careful reader attempts to recognize and assess. Equally, it seems hard to deny that aesthetic merit can be recognized and appreciated in a work without knowledge of or comparison with other works, and,a fortiori, independently of questions of originality since these require such knowledge and comparisons.

Denying this would mean denying that countless thousands who knew nothing but the Bible, or Paradise Lost, or a print of a Raphael Madonna could have any authentic appreciation or genuine recognition of the power or beauty of those works-something I would not wish to question. (I am not saying of course that this could happen without background knowledge of the language, sights and sounds in which any art works are embedded.) But such recognition and appreciation achieved without knowledge of other works cannot but be, however partial and untutored, a recognition of intrinsic aesthetic value. Obviously without comparisons there can be no ranking of values and no adequate realization of how high the intrinsic aesthetic merit may be. Gammer Gurton's Needle must have seemed an unsurpassably comic artistic achievement until later comedies came along. But we can surely reject any extreme doctrine that to judge that a work has aesthetic merit we must look beyond it to other works. Indeed, the need of comparisons to rank works reinforces rather than questions their possessions of intrinsic values. To rate, after careful attention,

The Confessio Amantis aesthetically superior to The Canterbury Tales or The Fleece to Paradise Lost would reveal something amiss. But such comparative rankings would be impossible unless intrinsic values could be attributed. Some such notion of intrinsic value underlies much of what follows. Returning to the demands for variety and originality that are often made, we can elucidate a kind of judgement that we make of art works different both from judgements that a work has intrinsic value and from comparative judgements that rank intrinsic values. These are judgements that balance the intrinsic worth of one work against that of another. Beardsley is alive to these judgements. Having said, firmly, 'We admire, and justly, the originality of Haydn and Beethoven and Stravinsky and Bartok, providing they wrote not only originally but well' (my italics), and added that from praise of a composer's

The intrinsic value of a work is its own aesthetic merit detached originality 'nothing follows about the goodness of the work', so seemingly treating what I called judgements of intrinsic value as the only truly aesthetic judgements, he then allows that we make another kind of judgement, one that accounts for our admiration for originality. 'After certain sounds have come into the world - after eighty-three Haydn quartets. . .for all their incredible variety within a certain range, we bow', he says, 'to the law of diminishing returns'. Admiration is due 'if another composer will enlarge the range of chamber music . . . with original innovations, rather than work within the same range.' But he apparently balks at regarding this as a genuinely aesthetic matter; rather, 'this admiration [for originality] is based on something like an economic ground, or on the general welfare' (my italics). The dispute may be only verbal; but I think these judgements can legitimately be regarded as aesthetic. I shall dub them In-context Judgements.

The issue is clear enough, though again I have to draw lines over-sharply. An extremely different new work of high merit has a new specific value. We may wish to balance this value against that of an earlier work. Suppose I think Bart6k's third quartet and the 'Jupiter' equally great, of equal intrinsic value, but that the quartet speaks to our times and reveals a personality and aspects of twentieth-century consciousness worlds apart from anything in Mozart or elsewhere. I might in that context place greater value on the Bart6k, i.e., regard its possible loss as greater than the loss, unhappy as that would be, of one Mozart symphony, even the 'Jupiter'.

One might even argue that, since it illuminates our condition or enlarges our experience in ways no single Mozart work can, one ought, in some sense, to value it higher in context (which is not to say one would or should save it if that meant losing all Mozart). Such balancing is difficult enough. Balancing in-context values is yet more difficult if intrinsic values are judged to differ markedly, the modern work having modest intrinsic value but a character Mozart or Michelangelo could never have offered (say, at the reader's choice, Berio's Sequenze or various works of Pop art). Here, forced to lose one work entirely (and I mean a choice based on evaluation, not on mere liking or resulting from a surfeit of Mozart), many would choose to keep all of Mozart's last symphonies though the differences between them are not of the extreme sort, and would sacrifice instead any new work of modest intrinsic value however different and innovatory.

Others, balancing values differently, conceding the lower intrinsic value of a new work, might yet value it more in context than any Mozart symphony because it contributes to contemporary life something that no existing or newly found Mozart symphony could. Issues like these about balancing values underlie Beardsley's remarks and can make some claims for the value of originality more intelligible.

How then should in-context judgements of value be described? Beardsley hesitated over regarding them as aesthetic judgements. Yet despite his remarks about 'an economic ground' and 'the general welfare' he concedes that the originality of a work, so long as the work is praiseworthy at all, is 'a contribution to our aestheticresources' (my italics). I prefer to say that we simply have another kind of aesthetic judgement here. For nothing is involved, once personal likings and the work's value for future developments and historical understanding are ruled out, except aesthetic worth. We are weighing aesthetic worth in a context, it is true, and deciding whether X is more valuable than Y in context because of the kind of aesthetic worth it has; but it is still aesthetic values we are considering, the value of an addition that has a new, different, specific value. If represented as a matter of economy, marginal value, diminishing returns and general welfare, it is the economy of aesthetic value, not of anything else, the value of the work to us, in our age, given the existing aesthetic legacy.

The only aim is maximization of aesthetic values, the richness, variety and range of our aesthetic life. To suppose that such judgements are not genuinely aesthetic but concern instead 'the general welfare' is to endorse the untenably narrow doctrine that denies that aesthetic judgements are thoroughly and inevitably permeated by our more general values and concern for human well-being. There is no contradiction in judging X equal or superior in intrinsic aesthetic value to Y and also judging Y aesthetically more valuable in the circumstances. Both judgements of aesthetic value can stand together provided they are not confused or understood otherwise than intended.

We can perhaps try some tentative conclusions. 'Original' is used in various neutral ways to indicate only some difference from what has gone before; a work so described may have great or negligible aesthetic worth. If Kant, Beardslcy and Osborne had these uses in mind, they rightly rejected originality as a reason for aesthetic praise. To suppose that mere difference guarantees or constitutes aesthetic merit would be absurd and also, a fortiori, that such originality is a high, the highest or the only significant aesthetic value. 'Original' is also used evaluarivcly in ways that carry a clear attribution of merit. When used thus, on the interpretations I have given so far, it is true, but trivially, that originality guarantees merit; also true that an original work will have a new specific value. But nothing ensures that this intrinsic value is high rather than modest; that must be judged independently.

Certainly a more original work need not have a higher intrinsic value than a less innovatory, more traditional work. Some critics and theorists may seek to claim importance for originality, tying it more closely to value than I have so far. Indeed, besides those more extreme claims that are either absurd or hard to comprehend, others deserve considerable sympathy.

One at least understandable way of seeing any new value as the greatest value a work can have would result from an uncompromising commitment to in- context evaluation. Earlier I shared Ruby Meager's doubt that to have aesthetic merit works must be original (in any, that is, of the neutral or evaluative ways discussed), a prima facie dubious view in the absence of satisfactory, non-stipulate support. But one might argue that originality is necessary for creation of value in the following way. Any really different aesthetic value, however small, outweighs, in context, any aesthetic value, however great, that resembles too closely those existing already; only new sorts of values genuinely extend our aesthetic store, contribute a new dimension to our lives; therefore the most valuable work, that most worth producing at any time is any that will add any shred of significantly different aesthetic experience, any new intrinsic value however slight (rather as a collector may value the acquisition of a very different specimen above that of near-duplicates even of higher market value). Given an existing body of art, we can see how some might place a premium on originality. A new value outweighs an additional familiar value; by however little it enlarges, enlargement is all. 

This position is intelligible even if we do not endorse it, and may be that of some contemporary theorists whether or not they so state it. But its proponents may misunderstand or overstate it thus: among all works whatever, any with a new value, being the only sort that can enlarge our resources, merits the highest praise. This is to confuse intrinsic value with the value of additions. Perhaps few, if they thought clearly, would hold a doctrine with such paradoxical implications for long.

It may, however, be easily confused with a view that genuinely justifies enthusiasm for originality. The possibility always exists that a work with a new specific value may have high intrinsic and not just high in-context worth. For such masterpieces originality is necessary, as Kant indeed said it was for genius. So we can encourage originality and experiments. The advice, Make It New, is not pointless and enthusiasm for originality need occasion neither dispute nor hostility. The greatest artists as well as the failures have ventured among untrodden ways; we can be grateful for the dedication and courage of innovators. But they and their apologists alike should remember that more minnows are caught than whales, not proclaim every new minnow a whale, or deny that many whales have already been landed. Equally, less innovatory artists who shun the risk business or by choice tread a more conservative path should remember that fewer whales may remain to be caught in the old waters.

An unexceptionable interpretation can also be put on remarks like Wollheim's that place originality among the highest values of art. They can be taken as applying less to particular works than to art, the institution or enterprise; for one reason why we value this most highly is that it has by its very nature the capacity to provide, along with the great aesthetic achievements that already exist, new and enriching objects and experiences of value.

Finally, I may be accused of misrepresenting evaluative uses of 'original'. Many might agree that 'original' often indicates not merely difference but also that a work has value: i.e., is 'creative', exhibits a new personality, insight, outlook, aspect of experience, etc. But I have treated 'original', used evaluative, as attributing, simply conjunctively, some difference from previous works and some independently assessable intrinsic merit. The objection might be that both difference from and similarity to previous works affect intrinsic merit, are partial determinants of value; intrinsic merit is not independent of such facts. This charge probably needs closer scrutiny than I can give it. So only some brief comments.

If a work is significantly different from others being, in its own way, say, powerful, moving and profound, these are merits. But if it is seriously derivative, significantly similar to works known directly or indirectly to the artist, it may fail to count as powerful, moving and profound but only as having merits, if any, of lesser degree; it is too nearly a rehash to equal the earlier work in merit. But this simply reasserts the view that a measure of originality, difference, is necessary for (high) merit, that lack of it reduces or wipes out merits the work would have had if original. Similarly, with judgements. For judgements, if correct, reflect what is true of the work. If, having carefully assessed a work new to us, we judge it in its own particular way powerful, moving, profound, etc. (allowing even that to make this judgement at all we might require background knowledge of some previous works from which it is seen notably to diverge), that would seem a judgement of its intrinsic merit. If we later discover it to be highly derivative, closely similar to even one previous work, and retract our judgement, judge it no longer (so) powerful, moving and profound, decide that its supposed merits were apparent only, we are again accepting the view that significant aesthetic merit requires a degree of originality.

By contrast, after the same initial judgement of the high merits of the work, a discovery that there has not been, unknown to us, any prior closely similar work leaves that judgement untouched: its apparent merits as we assessed them are its real merits. Certainly, when the originality of a work whose originality we were not sure of before is confirmed, we may rightly view its achievement as remarkable. Our wonder, admiration for the artist, his artistry, his imaginative leap, even for the powers of the human spirit are elicited by his having achieved, with so little help from his predecessors, precisely those qualities and merits we, perhaps provisionally, first judged the work to have.

Authoritative assessment of the merit of a work may perhaps be impossible without taking its originality or lack of it into account. But even if originality is necessary for merit, or lack of originality lowers the merit one would, assuming the work original, deem it to have, no argument so far shows, except in a Pickwickian sense, that originality adds to, increases or positively enhances its merit. It docs not suddenly become moving, powerful, profound by being proved significantly different from its predecessors. It merely has its apparent merits confirmed.

Beardsley, as I quoted him, said that originality in a 'strict sense' has no bearing on worth; for that sense, which is non-evaluative and concerns merely difference, his remark is unquestionable. But one wonders why he singled it out when other senses, evaluative and equally familiar, commonly appear in criticism. Since the slide from one of these many uses to another frequently goes unnoticed, equivocations and disputes easily arise. It is often unclear, even in context, and, one suspects, in the critic's or theorist's own mind, which of several things he means by calling a work original, how it bears on value and what various claims for the importance of originality amount to.

Often the most vocal enthusiasts for originality seem muddled about which version, or how many, they are espousing, and fail to realize what may be obvious to others, that some innovations are capable of yielding only minimal values. Distinguishing different uses of 'original' helps reveal the ambiguities underlying some of the apparent disagreements and allows some divergent claims to be assessed. Much remains to be elucidated; but it is worth reminding those who notice only neutral uses that evaluative uses of 'original' exist and their shared core of meaning has often enough been identified. Hazlitt, described by Eliot as 'perhaps the most uninteresting mind of all our distinguished critics', bluntly, as often, hit the main nail on the head: 'He is a man of genius who finds out a new ore. Originality is . . . the discovery of new and valuable truth'. Baudelaire similarly, who stressed as emphatically as anyone the importance of originality in art, states the matter as it must be if the claim is to have any acceptability: originality is striving after 'novelty of beauty'.