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James Maynard's avatar

Your piece got me thinking of all the times Thomas More has been portrayed in literature, and how his "silence" over King Henry's reformist legislation was actually very loud.

To be clear, I don't think a writer should pay lip service to every outrage or political event that comes in daily. I think, though, that it is incorrect to believe our writing can be free of politics: even when we stay away from politics that is political. The best piece I've read about it is George Orwell's complaint of Charles Dickens (in an essay titled the same name), in which the crux of the matter boils down to "all art is propaganda, but not all propaganda is art".

I think it's good to be aware of these forces that drive us, to make sure they are well patted down if we wish to write something "free of politics". The irony is we've made another politic by doing so.

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