In a message dated 3/19/2003 1:42:56 AM Pacific Standard Time, [log in to unmask] writes:
If, however, Shipley could show that the ethical
lapses of his behavior (which I take to be proven) had a subtle,
corrupting influence on his ethics in the major works, that they somehow
corroded and trivialized his presentation of the human situation, that
they blunted his human sympathies, that they led to a simplification of
our moral options, that they produced a kind of allegorical pastiche, then
he might make a case.
I couldn't make such a case. Events in 16th century Ireland seem to have acquired a terrible logic of their own...dragging the participants deeper and deeper in. People on both sides seem to have made decisions that were..to them...unavoidable.
Like our own Black Hills War, every time one decides upon a hero...or makes a list of good and bad characters...something happens to muddy the waters. The plains wars were like a slow motion car crash, where the participants could see what was coming, but could not slow the deadly momentum. So was Ireland.
I think Spenser would have changed it all if he could have.
MRS
