Well put, Janet!
And Rogerbob, Paul, and Janice--I don't think I was making any claims that Eliot's views were not deeply hateful in many regards--I read After Strange Gods to see if it was as bad as all that--and it was. However, at this point it's hardly news, is it, any more than Larkin's pornography fetish is (which, unlike Motion's notoriety for chasing female students, was at least a private fetish). But what got me incensed was Rogerbob's claim that Eliot's anti-Semitism (and hatred more generally) was at the center of his being, and thus (implicitly) his poetry. One makes no excuses for such things, but it only brushes Eliot's poetry, which is, on balance, deeply humane.
And Paul, if I got a bit cross with you (and it was only a bit), it's because you at the same time seem to be making good points and then copping the insanity plea. "All poets are mad," etc. Sure, there's a degree of eccentricity and Behaving Badly inherent in the enterprise, but most of us, personal comfort zones aside, know the difference between honest and dishonest dealings. Including you, by the way.
I suspect that at this point, we're probably all talking past one another a bit, and we all agree that anti-Semitism and the like are not things to be lauded or excused.
Janice, you weren't in my line of fire at all, really.
Quincy
|
Threaded Mode
