There isn't a single kind of possible relationship between the political
behaviour of writers and the things they write (different writers, different
writings...). "Compartmentalising" means carrying on as though there were no
relationship at all, which I don't find myself able to do. If the
relationship is often "complex", then one of the things this means is that
it is very seldom the case that the writing is wholly innocent of the things
the writer is guilty of. Yeats' poetry has a few things to answer for, I
should think; Shakespeare's too.
Here's a comment of Hill's, from his essay on Pound ("Our Word Is Our
Bond"):
"The transcript of the Washington hearing (on Pound's wartime treachery)
preserves a number of solemn and vacuous pronouncements by advocates and
experts on both sides, but the observation that 'the crime with which he is
charged is closely tied up with his profession of writing' has an
ineluctability that is not diminished by its banal obviousness."
- Dom
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
