Why art is not separate from the artist | Stanley Fish

In the wake of the Weinstein scandal, many called for a boycott of the films of Roman Polanski and Woody Allen. Yet 20th century literary critics encouraged us to look at the text alone, and cited “the death of the author“. Can and should we separate the artist from the art? Are the misdeeds of writers, thinkers and artists irrelevant to their work? Or should we excise the morally indefensible? Stanley Fish: Literary critic and legal scholar, Fish regularly contributes to the New York Times. He is the auth