re P's intentions

[Dave Monroe]

Take into account anything and everything you can (which is why I'd advise
positing "intention" with no statement thereof at hand), but keep in mind that
"authors" et al. have their own insights into and blindnesses about their
works, their own presentations of their supposed "intentions" presented perhaps
in the interests of other intentions.  First off, one has to ask, say, does a
text live up to its author's stated intentions?  Does it perhaps even succeed
despite them?   But, more generally, do we take EVERYBODY at their word in re:
their word, as authors of, as authorties on, their words?  Think, if not, first
off, novelists, then, say, politicians, criminals, whoever?  And with, say,
Lit'rachure, it's not even a 'simple" matter of truth or falsehood, is it?

Robert Pirani wrote:

> Then there are more difficult cases, like Ezra Pound -- would it be better to
> read the Cantos without knowing that the author's anti-semitism was
> considerably more virulent and participatory than the text itself reveals ?

... but just try perceiving Edgar Degas' notorious anti-semitism (despite the
fact that "his best friend was a Jew" ...) in those pastel ballerinas, or Emil
Nolde's Nazi wannabeism in his floral watercolors (even the Nazis considered
him a "degenerated" artist, despite his intentions) ...