Phrase written decades before popular

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind (WLFI) - -    It's a phrase most people are familiar with, in a song recorded by countless artists.  Its title is virtually unknown, but the opening lines:  "To dream the impossible dream, to fight the unbeatable foe" are familiar to many.  That phrase, coined in Dale Wasserman's popular play "Man of La Mancha," may have existed decades before the playwright penned them.
    "Righting ever wrong and exposing himself to peril and danger from which he would return to reap eternal fame and glory," read Purdue Professor of Spanish, Howard Mancing from his well worn copy of "Don Quixote."
    Mancing became fascinated with Cervantes' Don Quixote when he first read the novel in 1964.  Since then, he set forth on his own quest to detail every mention of the novel and its author in his two volume book the "Cervantes' Encyclopedia."  He finished the collection when a stray piece of research arrive from inter-library loan:  a play titled "Don Quixote:  A Dramatization of Cervantes' Novel" by Paul Kester.  
     "I read through it and it was another dreary, rather mediocre adaptation of the novel to stage, but then at the end there was some press matter, some sort of publicity releases stuff.  If you want to present this play, here's how to might advertise it," explained Mancing.
    In a paragraph half way down the page he read the line:  "To dream the impossible dream, to fight the unbeatable foe--to tilt at windmills or large flocks of sheep which the imagination has transformed into  formidable armies..."
    "I just startled to read those lines because it was 29 years before they were to have come into existence," said Mancing.
   The play was copyrighted  in 1930.  Dale Wasserman wrote a television play "Don Quixote" that developed into the musical "Man of La Mancha" in 1959.  In his book, "The Impossible Musical," Wasserman states:  "Once upon a time I invented a phrase, 'the impossible dream.'"  
    "He didn't invent it.  That's clear.  It was in existence a few decades before he used it.  He reinvented it," said Mancing.     
    So, Mancing wrote to Wasserman in 2004 and provided copies of the relevant pages from Paul Kester's play.  In an emailed response provided by Mancing, Wasserman says:  "I have never heard of Paul Kester nor read any of his works."  
    "He was really very adamant.  So, OK, if he says he didn't I guess he didn't," said Mancing of the response Wasserman sent him.
    Mancing recently published a paper about the find in a small book to honor a friend's retirement.  News Channel 18 contacted Wasserman about Mancing's paper and the similarity of the two phrases.  He responded:  " If there is such a person as Howard Mancing, he did not contact me.  There have been over one thousand 'adaptations' of DON QUIXOTE in the last 400 years.  I would estimate that the IMPOSSIBLE DREAM phrase would have turned up a half-dozen times.  The rest of that speech, however, would not."  Wasserman did not respond to further attempts to clarify his position.  It turns out copyright law also murky.  The law is written in black and white, but as Purdue's Director of the Copyright Office, Donna Ferullo, explained the interpretation is often gray.
    "Nothing is hard and fast in copyright law.  Lots of gray areas because copyright law is about balance.  You want to balance the right of copyright holders with the rights of individuals to use those works for certain purposes," said Ferullo.
    Copyright law does not look at how many words or even pages are copied.  It considers the context of the material.  What is weighted is if the heart of the material is compromised. 
    "It's really the expression of the idea that's protected, not the idea its self," said Ferullo.
    But Purdue Professor of Visual and Performing Arts Rick Thomas says artists often expand ideas.
     "I think one of the interesting things is Mozart stole from Hyden and Hyden stole from Mozart.  So artists are quite well known for stealing ideas from other people.  It happens all the time.  Lenny Bruce said I don't have an original idea.  It's interesting how it happens that art is an evolutionary process," explained Thomas.
    Thomas said it's not impossible that Wasserman came across Kester's play and saw the line, but doesn't remember doing so.
    "It does happen that ideas pop into your head from things you've actually studied and researched before," said Thomas.
    As for Mancing, he says he was just curious on how the idea developed.
    "I like to find out these little details," said Mancing of his discovery.  Mancing explained he is not concerned about details of who ultimately takes credit for the phrase.