Influence Must Become Digestion
Three failures are pure imitation, pure rebellion, and consumer eclecticism. The Royal Art follows another rhythm: receive deeply → digest → transform → speak anew. Dante metabolizes Virgil, Scripture, theology, myth, and politics; Blake transforms Bible, Milton, Swedenborg, engraving, and prophecy; Tolkien makes Germanic myth, Finnish epic, Catholic theology, and philology into Middle-earth. Synthesis becomes art when sources cease to appear as quotations and become organs of a new living body.