From: Patsloane-AT-aol.com
Date: Sun, 28 May 2000 19:49:19 EDT
Subject: Re: hating the modern


In a message dated 5/28/00 6:01:08 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
gpearce-AT-webtime.com.au writes:

> I agree that politics stated like this gets us nowhere, but then neither
>  does the old line about this is just art and his politics is 
inconsequential
>  (for Yeats or for modernism). 

People have certain attitudes that they bring to what they read. A person 
strongly interested in art and not very interested in politics will usually 
take more interest in Yeats's art than in his politics. It's a different 
situation for a person strongly interested in politics and not very 
interested in art. 

We can't assume that all readers are alike or ought to be alike.  One could, 
you know, study only Yeats's  finances--how much money he earned every year 
and how he spent it. This might be tedious to most readers, but absolutely 
fascinating to accountants. And what about people attuned to biography? 
They'll tolerate a long biography of Yeats that never even mentions his art 
at all.

The art versus politics versus biography conundrum is actually about what 
readers "ought" to prefer, and as such isn't  very interesting. One can make 
up all kinds of arbitrary rules about what readers "ought" to see in Yeats, 
but there's no way t force anyone to conform to any of those those rules. 

pat sloane