the text, the whole text and nothing but

[CyrusGeo at netscape.net]

"Menschen U. Hupokrinesthai" <menschenhupokrinesthai at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> What I am suggesting is that what is needed is  what we do here, on our 
> better days, that is, a critical reading of all the texts.  If Swift was 
> made out to be a madman and subjected to the prevailing psychological 
> theories he was also, due to the excellent critical work, found to be 
> perfectly sane, not a misanthrope, to have written Part IV of GT (the Part 
> that was deemed the haranguing madness of  a man in love with his own bowls 
> and in hate with his fellow man) prior to writing other works that were 
> judged
> works of genius and continence. 

Well, as I see it, the critics who deemed Swift a misanthropic madman made the common mistake of ascribing the traits of the text to the author, because their main interest was the author, not the text. Perhaps some sort of balance is needed.
 
> 
> Is it relevant for the reader? It can be. It depends. The author's fascism 
> may not be present in his work. If a man comes to my studio to make a bronze 
> of my wife and he makes it a beautiful one, should I hate it after ten years 
> of loving it because I read his Obit this morning and it said that he was 
> racist? I don't favor censorship of any kind. However, I do not allow my 10 
> year old daughter to read Tom Swift books.
> 
> Skip the PO and the sharpened aggression, I have an erasure on my pencil, 
> how about you?

OK

Cyrus
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