"Because Dylan 'samples and digests' songs from the past, he has been accused of plagiarism.

"This charge underestimates Dylan’s complex creative process, which closely resembles that of early modern poets who had a different concept of originality – a concept Dylan intuitively understands. For Renaissance authors, 'originality' meant not creating something out of nothing, but going back to what had come before. They literally returned to the 'origin.' Writers first searched outside themselves to find models to imitate, and then they transformed what they imitated – that is, what they found, sampled and digested – into something new. Achieving originality depended on the successful imitation and repurposing of an admired author from a much earlier era. They did not imitate each other, or contemporary authors from a different national tradition. Instead, they found their models among authors and works from earlier centuries.

"In his book 'The Light in Troy,' literary scholar Thomas Greene points to a 1513 letter written by poet Pietro Bembo to Giovanfrancesco Pico della Mirandola.

“'Imitation,' Bembo writes, 'since it is wholly concerned with a model, must be drawn from the model … the activity of imitating is nothing other than translating the likeness of some other’s style into one’s own writings.' The act of translation was largely stylistic and involved a transformation of the model." - Raphael Falco

Article: How Bob Dylan Used the Ancient Practice of “Imitatio” to Write Songs