[hartror]

The philosophy you are espousing is known in literary theory as "Death of the Author".

> argues against the method of reading and criticism that relies on aspects of the author's identity to distill meaning from the author's work.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_the_Author

I recommend Lindsay Ellis' video on the subject. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGn9x4-Y_7A

Many of the golden age authors rage from "just" problematic like Asimov to a lot worse (see for more: http://www.jasonsanford.com/blog/2018/2/golden-age-sf-not-go...). I still read these authors but I for one cannot help see the author in their books, and knowledge of their actions certainly influences how I interpret these books. I therefore don't believe in Death of the Author.

[lordgrenville]

I think they're separate issues. "Death of the author" is a principle in criticism: do we care about the author's intention in creating the text? The older version of this was the "New Criticism", which tried to read the text in a vacuum, not paying attention to the historical and biographical context of its composition. But Barthes took this further by saying that the author had no control over the interpretation, even if s/he explicitly tells us what the text means. (A related idea is "reader-response theory", which begins the criticism with the unique response of the individual reader at the time). A simplified litmus test would be if you think a writer has the right to claim that one of their characters is homosexual, when the text doesn't indicate either way.

What you're talking about is a moral judgment, not a critical one. So not saying "this book isn't good because the author was bad", but saying "regardless of the book's qualities, we shouldn't read it because the author was a bad person".

[kd5bjo]

>I for one cannot help see the author in their books, and knowledge of their actions certainly influences how I interpret these books.

This is part of the reason why I avoid reading about authors. Like the practice of symphonies doing auditions blind in order to avoid bias, I don't want my personal opinions of an author's life to taint my evaluation of their work.

[ClumsyPilot]

Plato was a racist, had ~50 slaves and was a convicted public masturbator. Should we throw away his phylosophy work too?

How many historical works will we be left with after we've gone through all historical figures up to emancipation? We probably will have to give up even the theory of evolution.

[watwut]

We should not throw it away, but we should keep it in mind when learning from him. Cause if we don't, adopting his values and thinking can slowly lead us toward slave owning and so on. It is related.

[AllegedAlec]

> The philosophy you are espousing is known in literary theory as "Death of the Author".

No, it's not. I'm not talking about literary criticism or text interpretation. I'm talking about reading books for fun.

[Angostura]

In that case, I would think that reading books by a particular author could become "less fun" once you know about their behaviour. In the same way, I used to have some Rolf Harris novelty songs on my iPod playlist for the kids - and sone Gary Glitter. Listening to those songs once they were convicted, certainly became "less fun".