Why do we excuse our writers their attitudes? This may seem like a strange question to ask, in an age in which the literary establishment is overwhelmingly liberal and cosmopolitan in its politics. However, it hasn’t always been that way, and it is these past attitudes that constitute our problem. Many of the great writers we revere held views that are repugnant to (most of) us now, yet we excuse them.
William Shakespeare’s writing may have produced magnificent speeches that any actor would happily debase themselves to declaim, but any person from outside of England who listens to half of Henry V recognises him for what he is – a jingoistic little-Englander with a thirst for foreign blood. If he was alive today he’d vote UKIP. When we read Dickens, we generally excuse his chauvinism, his racism and the anti-Semitism inherent in the character of Fagin. When we read Waugh we forget his enthusiastic support for the Third Reich.
Why is this? There is an argument for assessing people’s attitudes in terms of the context in which they lived. The social attitudes of the times in which Shakespeare lived are obviously very different from those we hold now. We cannot and should not hold Shakespeare et al to a standard that was nigh on impossible to attain in his surroundings and sometimes pretty damn difficult to attain in our own.
And, while we’re at it, should we not just offer these writers a free pass based on their genius? These are people with incredible skill, with brilliance that the rest of us can only dream of wielding. They are clearly not subject to the same standards as the rest of us – if Dickens was a racist, then so be it, but he was also the writer Dickens and deserves to be excused on the basis of the work he did as a writer.
However, novels, like all art, are valuable only in subjective terms – I like what I like, you like what you like, that’s simply the way it goes. That means that nobody gets a free pass. You may think that Conrad’s depiction of nautical life is an achievement to be trumpeted from the rooftops, whereas I may feel Conrad no more interesting than your common or garden scribbler. In this case you may find it easier to excuse Conrad his racist, imperialist portrayal of Africans than I would. I, in fact, may not excuse him this at all.
If we fall back on the argument from context, we still couldn’t give our authors carte blanche. Although it may be difficult for someone to espouse liberal views in a conservative age, it is not impossible. Take John Stuart Mill – a man who lived and died in the 19th century, a philosopher and a civil servant, and, most notably, a proto-feminist. If he could espouse views that many in our own time are shamefully in opposition to, who is to say that his contemporaries couldn’t? Not everyone in Dickens’ time was an anti-Semite. Not everyone in Waugh’s time supported the Third Reich. If it was possible for others to dissent from these particular views, then why not hold these educated people, these ‘men of letters’, to the highest standard, rather than the lowest?
In any case, we may feel that it is inappropriate to criticise these writers in their capacity as writers rather than their capacity as humans. We may feel that we can separate their art from their personal views. As Andrew Motion put it when discussing Philip Larkin, the conflation of life and art “rest[s]on the assumption that art is merely a compulsive expression of personality.” This is clearly an unwarranted assumption. If we can separate the life of an artist and the art they create, then we may be able to love the creation whilst criticising the creator. This means that we no longer have to excuse our writers. We no longer have to say “they were a racist BUT their work was great”. If so, this raises an issue that has troubled me for some time – the reaction that most people have to that most hated of artists, Richard Wagner.
Why we revile Wagner’s work with a passion that we set aside when discussing other notable racists is beyond me. We certainly don’t have any justification for holding the man himself to a higher standard than any other artist and we can no more universally renounce his genius than we can for Verdi or Mozart or hundreds of more fashionable composers – its subjective. We also do not seem to want to excuse him on the basis of context. The honest answer is that his work was enjoyed by, even loved by, a group of truly evil people. That Hitler and his fellow National Socialists loved the work of Wagner is undeniable. That this alone justifies the hatred of Wagner’s operas is not. Plenty of evil people loved things that we do not hold under such contempt. Joseph Stalin was allegedly a huge fan of musical theatre and the lengths to which Kim Jong-il went in order to craft a tribute to his favourite film, Godzilla, are well documented. None of these things are hated with such vehemence as the work of Wagner.
Then again, there is pretty much no connection between musicals and the murder of millions of people. The work of Wagner seems to have a pretty strong connection to the anti-semitism and Germanic cultural imperialism inherent in the Nazi movement. However, I would say that this case has been overstated somewhat. The works of Marx have a pretty strong connection to Stalin’s murder of millions of people and yet we are sniffier about condemning them than the operas of Wagner – it is clear we don’t really follow this principle with regards to other works.
In addition to this, there is a great deal that can be said for these operas. Of course, is a good deal of evidence to show that they support an anti-Semitic, German imperialist view of the world. However, this is to miss two powerful objections. The first is that Wagner was in no way a German imperialist. He was a socialist for quite some time and, throughout his life was dedicated to sweeping away the old certainties that were perpetuated by the German establishment at this time. Only a fool or a zealot could watch Das Ring Der Nibelungen and think it a call to arms for German dominance. The destruction of all of existence occurs because of the corruption of Gods and men. Every character who lusts for power in Das Ring… is destroyed. This is hardly a ringing endorsement for imperialism.
The second objection is that the character that is most usually portrayed as a Jewish stereotype, Alberich, is far from the only stereotype in the literary world, yet he is held up as if he is the be-all-and-end-all. Ask people to name a stereotypical Jewish character in fiction and you’ll get a thousand Shylocks and Fagins before someone says Alberich. The impact that these characters have had on popular conceptions of Jewishness has far outstripped the harm done by The Ring Cycle, yet we don’t seem to hate Dickens or Shakespeare with the same fervour we reserve for Wagner. It is clear that we are holding Oliver Twist to a different standard, and demonising the work of Wagner without any real justification.
I am perfectly happy to separate the artist from the work. I think Wagner was a disgusting, arrogant and misguided fool. I cannot read his personal writings without feeling this way. It’s like spending time with a racist relative you’ve never particularly liked. His music, on the other hand, is beautiful. The same goes for Dickens’ writing and Waugh’s novels. However, we should hold all of these to the same standard. Not to do so is to risk sacrificing art on the altar of prejudice and losing some truly fantastic works to those to whom they do not belong.
