/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6640594]

Do a writers political beliefs affect how you view their work?

[Anonymous No.6640609]

Yes, though it doesn't mean I'll ignore the good quality works like those of Pound, Celine, or Voltaire or treat the works any differently for that matter.

[Anonymous No.6640613]

no one reads in a vacuum

[Anonymous No.6640631]

I try to ignore it but I can be difficult. In Pound's case, all the good he did for the art world far outweighs his other crackpot ideas.

[Anonymous No.6640724]

I try not to let it. I think it's a huge mistake to judge an author's work based on his politics or personal life. I think it is wrong to say that an author's work redeems him of his politics. Sometimes the author and the work are inseperable. Understanding the author biographically can help you better understand his work. I hate the petty dismissiveness in literary studies. We should be assessing literature first, not literature based on what we think of the author. It's hard to help this, but we should try to keep the person and the work distinct. I don't know what this is called, judging creators of a work instead of the work itself, but it seems more and more prevalent in today's society. Are Caravaggio's paintings any less good because he fucked little boys? No. Pound and Shaw's works are no less good because they were fascists.

[Anonymous No.6640815]

>>6640594
I try to avoid learning about an author as a person until after I've finished reading whatever it was that had me reading them in the first place.

[Anonymous No.6640821]

Why was Camus an anarchist?
Why was Sartre a communist?

[Anonymous No.6640884]

>>6640594
Homage to Catalonia changes 1984 into Solid Fucking Au

[Anonymous No.6641009]

>>6640609
>he doesn't agree with pound