I'll argue that knowing the author's life may only color our judgement of a poem, but can drastically alter our judgement of a history. I think of this essay b

I'll argue that knowing the author's life may only color our judgement of a poem, but can drastically alter our judgement of a history. I think of this essay by Bret Devereaux a lot, where he talks about the propaganda behind Roman histories. If you read Tacitus's Germania without any context, you might never know that's just a bad, second- or third-hand description of the Germanic peoples, and that he very likely never traveled there. https://acoup.blog/2020/02/07/collections-the-fremen-mirage-part-iiia-by-the-princess-irulan/ https://acoup.blog/2020/02/07/collections-the-fremen-mirage-...