Chris Bonds replies:

>>Adjectives such as "racist" and "misogynous" applied to a XVIII century
>>libretto?...hmmm.  According to this, almost all western literature is
>>misogynous, racist and fascist.
>
>Yes, Shylock does come to mind.

Peter Goldstein replies to the same assertion:

>Well, um, it is. The question is, what do we do about it? One extreme
>says we point it out at every opportunity, the other extreme says we deny
>it at every opportunity

Oh, I just can't believe what I read!.  Then, Achilles, son of Pelleus,
was a psycho killer; Oedipus, a guy who could't resolve his oedipus
complex; Dante, a catholic terrorist; Henry V, a fascist; Don Giovanni, a
guy who became a freak rapist because the society didn't let him to assume
his homosexuality; Dr.  Jekyll, a schyzophrenic; Dracula, a symbol of
plusvalia; and Moby Dick, a memeber of an endangered species.  Nice
isn't?.To judge any artistic ot intellectual expression from the past
through concepts from our time only is called "anachronism", which is not
only a fail of judgement, but a lack of taste and culture.  What do we do
about it?:  if every idiot around believes himself in the right to cut off
from art any expression that he finds offensive (just as Fetis did when he
"corrected" some "wrong" harmonic passages of Beethoven), the result will
be no art at all.

Pablo Massa
[log in to unmask]