I have always been of the view that one should judge a writer by the quality of their writing and not allow one’s own likes and dislikes to intrude when forming such judgements. This is, I believe particularly important when the writer’s political perspective differs from your own.

 

One does not, for example, have to be a Conservative to enjoy the poetry of Philip Larkin, nor does one need to be a man (or woman) of the left to appreciate the work of the poet W. H. Auden. Both poets where (and remain) great men of letters irrespective of whether one agrees with their political stance.

 

My view that one should not allow one’s own political convictions to influence one’s response to literature was reinforced by this article in The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jun/28/twitter-rips-into-jeremy-corbyns-pretentious-poetry-except-its-actually-by-shelley.

 

The former leader of the British Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, posted an extract from a poem on Twitter in order to advertise his forthcoming book. Many Twitter users reacted by saying that the poem was bad and questioning why it had been posted.

 

In point of fact, the extract in question comes from Shelley’s The Mask of Anarchy which is one of Shelley’s best known poems.

 

How many of those criticising the poem where doing so on the grounds that they disliked Mr Corbyn’s politics, rather than on it’s literary merits? I confess to not knowing the answer to my own question. I do, however have a strong hunch that much of the criticism of the poem stemmed from a dislike of Jeremy Corbyn’s politics and not from the literary merits (or demerits) of the work itself.

 

I am no fan of Jeremy Corbyn’s politics. However, I do, as stated above, believe that readers should be extremely wary of basing their views of poetry (or any other writing) on whether or not they agree with the political perspectives of the writer in question. (Of course in this case the irony is that the poem in question was not even the work of Mr Corbyn)!