Paul--
Having just defended Eliot from simplistic dismissal on a political basis, I also find the notion of an absolute separation of poetry from what it states about the world equally suspect. Poems are made out of words, which have meanings and implications, and in an art form like poetry, frequently have meshes of meanings. While I would never insist that a poem that expresses ideas similar to mine is good (I've come across plenty of crap ones that do that) or one that expresses ideas different from mine is bad (too many of those are good), I do a poem a disservice if I don't take it seriously. While I find Eliot's anti-Semitism in After Strange Gods repugnant, I nevertheless, as a reader whose work is shot through with influences from the guy, have to deal with it. What role do Eliot's religious and political views play in his work? What is it about it that resonates with me? It sure as %#^& ain't extended tirades against the "free-thinking jew." But the core of his questions are not based in dodgy racial theories, but rather in a desire for some sort of meaning in life, an order and a sublimity. Yes, his answers led him to many positions that I do not share (monarchism, Anglo-Catholicism as well), but I cannot help but feel a great deal of sympathy for him in a way that I cannot, say, for a poet primarily motivated by irrational hatred of other races and an inflated self-perception, or a critic or editor who, say, sets up Potemkin Village webzines, lambastes books he clearly hasn't read or pseudonymously attacks those toward whom he bears grudges on a personalist and dishonest basis, and promotes poets based on what they say, with a few better writers thrown in for window dressing. Those sorts of things do sully the art.
Quincy
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