What T.S. Eliot actually said about artists who steal

“One of the surest of tests is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.”
— T.S. Eliot

The British poet and writer T.S. Eliot is often credited with the quip “good poets imitate, great poets steal,” which also been attributed falsely — with variations, like substituting “artists” or “writers” as the noun — to Pablo Picasso, Calvin Trillin, Steve Jobs and others.

Eliot wrote many words and phrases that have profoundly influenced the culture (and many others — more on that shortly.)

Here’s what he actually wrote.

In an essay titled Philip Massinger published in the Times Literary Supplement in 1919, Eliot wrote the sentence above. The essay was published again in a journal the next year, and later in a book. Eliot’s aim in the essay was to evaluate the Jacobean playwright, whose legacy was then (and still is) vastly overshadowed by William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson.

It’s curious how a punchier version of the quote evolved over the years, and came to be attributed to people who never actually said it.

Many quotes over the years have been attributed to Eliot, but not all of them came from his own mouth or pen.

A font of inspiration for other people’s titles

Eliot’s influence continues well into our century. Here are just some of the ways his thoughts and words play into our culture:

Evelyn Waugh found his best title in this line from Eliot’s The Waste Land: “I will show you fear in a handful of dust.“

Then there is Cats, the musical that Andrew Lloyd Webber adapted from Eliot’s whimsical Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.

Apocalypse Now makes great use of Eliot’s The Hollow Men in this scene, with lines delivered by the characters played by Marlon Brando and Dennis Hopper.

The 1986 Irish indie movie Eat The Peach got its title from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.

Prufrock also inspired the Canadian movie I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing, which came out the following year, starring the wonderful Sheila McCarthy.

Still with Canada and still with Prufrock, let’s measure out our day with the Crash Test Dummies and a Gen-X anthem, Afternoons and Coffeespoons:

Meanwhile, have a listen to Eliot — an American who found his voice in England — reading his best-known work, The Waste Land: