On Tue, 25 Jul 2000, Douglas Barbour wrote...
>On the other hand, I definitely would agree that those letters are supposed
>to be, and for many fo the writers involved should be, private.
I'm in two minds about this. My first reaction was to agree with Hugh
and Douglas. But then it occurred to me that what was happening was
neither more nor less than someone publishing their opinion about
someone else's work. Is that reprehensible? It depends on whether
there's some implied confidentiality agreement between a publisher and
the person who submits work to them. Perhaps there should be. Certainly,
if an editor to whom I'd unsuccessfully submitted work published what he
thought of it, I'd be upset. But then I'd be upset if someone who'd met
me and didn't like me had their biography published and their dislike of
me was mentioned.
If a biographer wasn't allowed to say anything that portrayed any of the
people the subject had encountered in other than glowing colours,
there'd be precious few biographies, and no interesting ones.
Does/should the work of an unpublished poet have some special status in
this regard?
--
Peter
http://www.hphoward.demon.co.uk/poetry/
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