I don't quite get the point of this list. From the preceding sentence, it seems these are supposed to be ways that authors mythologized themselves, but a lot of these don't seem to make a lot of sense from that angle. Like did Pound really mythologize himself as a crank? Did Harriet Beecher Stowe try to mythologize herself as an abolitionist? It seems the list kind of looses its moorings and becomes just a facile compendium of the images attached to well-known writers, suitable for displaying possession of a liberal education, if the name should come up in a cocktail party conversation.
― o. nate, Wednesday, 24 March 2021 01:52 (three years ago) link