Sometimes you learn from the private life that the guy is nicer than you thought. I have met poets that I HAD thought were assholes (as you Americans say) and found out that they weren't. And it makes a difference. Perhaps it ought not to, but it does. Going back rather a long way, does not the tale of Petronius's protracted suicide make us like his work even more, if that were possible? And Gavin Ewart's poem about the death of W.S. Gilbert makes one think better of the cantankerous old sod. And since I love his verse, that's nice.
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