John, in my neck of the woods, as I understand it, sexual relations with those under the age of consent or minors is considered as paedophilia by the law. The sources didn't specify whether or not the particular characteristic you mentioned was present. But it was all done via pictures and fiction: there is no suggestion that L actually pursued the objects of that particular fantasy in real life, though he was mightily interested in the subject. There's plenty in Motion's biography and Thwaite's selected letters to justify a total boycott of Larkin's work if you are of the school of thought that says that racists, homophobes, misogynists and other degenerates should have their poetic artifacts denied publication.

Quincy, when I read about Eliot and Larkin being like that it depresses me in terms of lamenting the fallibility of humanity, but it in no way diminishes my response to the poems that these fallible humans produced. Like you probably do I have an ambivalent attitude on those grounds towards poems like Eliot's 'Gerontion', but not towards the main body of his work; and I like Larkin's writing very much indeed -- apart from such references as "black scum" and "the scum of Europe".

My "all poets are mad" comment was supposed to be along the lines of "there's nowt so queer as folk -- all the world's queer save thee and me, and even thee's a little queer!" -- ie we're all on a spectrum of beastliness, we can all be banged up good to rights if someone takes a mind to sift through our doings and sayings and paint us as this or that. I think poets are often particularly prone to extreme or bizarre psychological states all along the spectrum, and to shooting off their mouths, and so make good subjects for vilification.

Furthermore, every individual of us has her own particular set of buttons that make the behaviours of one person problematic and those of another not. I guess it is selective outrage that bemuses me: why individuals pick one set of bad behaviours in one particular evil-doer to be unforgivable, beyond the pale, and representative of absolute evil incarnate, and yet a very similar (perhaps to other observers even worse) set of behaviours in another evil-doer (or even in themselves) to be regrettable perhaps but not defining. In my opinion it finally gets down to personal dislike or animosity, not high principle. And I'd like to see a little room for the possibility of redemption in there as well, and the possibility of moving on to more interesting matters.