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CU Boulder philosopher Iskra Fileva explores the complexities in separating the magic of a story from the controversies of its teller

The transition from summer to fall鈥攖rading warm days for cool evenings鈥攎eans that things are getting 鈥� spookier. Witchier, maybe. For fans of the series, the approach of Halloween means it鈥檚 time to rewatch the Harry Potter movies.

This autumn also marks the 25^th anniversary of the U.S. release of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, book three in author J.K. Rowling鈥檚 seven-book series about a boy wizard defeating the forces of evil with help from his friends. Many U.S. readers of a certain age cite Azkaban as the point at which they discovered the magic of Harry Potter.

However, in the years since the series ended, Rowling has gained notoriety for stating strongly anti-trans views. Harry Potter fans have expressed disappointment and feelings of betrayal, and asked the question that has shadowed the arts for centuries, if not millennia: Is it possible to love the art but dislike the artist? Can the two be separated?

鈥淚n principle, you can try to focus on the purely aesthetic properties of an artwork. This is the aestheticist attitude,鈥� says Iskra Fileva, a 暗网禁区 assistant professor of philosophy who has published on topics of virtue and morality. 鈥淏ut even if you are an aestheticist, you probably cannot separate the art from the artist if the background information is affecting the proper interpretation of the story.鈥�

The Impact of Knowing

Fileva offered as an example the work of Nobel Prize-winning author Alice Munro. In a short story called 鈥淲ild Swans,鈥� Munro depicts a young girl on a train who is sexually assaulted by an older man sitting beside her, but who pretends to be asleep and does nothing because she is curious about what would happen next.

Munro鈥檚 daughter came forward several months after Munro鈥檚 death in May to say she鈥檇 been abused by her stepfather and that her mother, after initially separating from her stepfather, went back to live with him, saying that she loved him too much.

Fileva points out that in light of these revelations, it is reasonable for readers of 鈥淲ild Swans鈥� to reinterpret the story. Whereas initially they may have seen it as a psychologically nuanced portrayal of the train scene, they may, after learning of the daughter鈥檚 reports, come to read the story as an attempt at victim-blaming disguised as literature.

Fileva contrasts Munro鈥檚 case with cases in which an author may have said or done reprehensible things, but not anything that bears on how their work should be interpreted鈥攁s when Italian painter Caravaggio killed a man in a brawl, but the homicide is considered irrelevant to interpreting his paintings. 听听听

Fileva points out also that the question of whether the art can be separated from the artist may seem particularly pressing today, because modern audiences know so much more about artists than art consumers in the past may have. If no one knows facts about the author鈥檚 life, art consumers would be unable to draw parallels between an artwork and biographical information about the author.听

鈥淭hese are things that, historically, few would have known about鈥攖he origin of a novel or any other kind of artwork. Art might have looked a little bit more magical, and there may have been more mystery surrounding the author and in the act of creation,鈥� says Fileva, explaining how the personal lives of artists have begun to seep into the minds of their consumers, something that has recently become common.

In 1919, , 鈥淚 have assumed as axiomatic that a creation, a work of art, is autonomous.鈥� And in his essay 鈥�,鈥� literary theorist Roland Barthes criticized and sought to counter 鈥渢he explanation of the work is always sought in the man who has produced it, as if, through the more or less transparent allegory of fiction, it was always finally the voice of one and the same person.鈥�

However, early 20th-century movements such as , which considered works of art as autonomous, have given way to more nuanced considerations of art in relation to its artist.

鈥淚 do think that if you want to understand what work literature does in the world, starting with its historical moment is an important step,鈥� Amy Hungerford, a Yale University professor of English, told author Constance Grady in a . 鈥淏ut I also am fully committed to the idea that every generation of readers remakes artworks鈥� significance for themselves. When you try to separate works of art from history, whether that鈥檚 the moment of creation or the moment of reception, you鈥檙e impoverishing the artwork itself to say that they don鈥檛 have a relation.鈥�

Too many tweets

The growth of social media has added a new layer to the issues of art and the artists who create it. According to Fileva, social media have made it more difficult to separate the two because of how much more the consumer is able to know, or think they know, about the artist: 鈥淎rtists are often now expected to have a public persona, to be there, to talk to their fans, to have these parasocial relationships, and that might make it difficult to separate the art from the artist,鈥� she says.

In Fileva鈥檚 view, all this creates a second way in which facts about the author seem to bear on the public鈥檚 perception of an artwork. While learning about the revelations made by Munro鈥檚 daughter may lead some readers to reinterpret 鈥淲ild Swans,鈥� other readers and viewers may feel disappointed and 鈥渓et down鈥� by the author even without reinterpreting the artwork or changing their judgment about the work鈥檚 qualities.

This is another way in which it may become difficult to separate the art from the artist: The work becomes 鈥渢ainted鈥� for some audience members because of what they have learned about its creator.

It may have always been the case, Fileva suggests, that people who really loved a work of art, even when they knew nothing about its creator, imagined that they were connected to the artist, but this is truer today than ever. Fans are able to follow their favorite artists on social media and feel that they know the artist as a person, which creates expectations and the possibility for disappointment.

Perhaps inevitably, greater knowledge of the artist as a person affects how consumers interact with his or her art鈥攚hether it鈥檚 Ye (formerly Kanye) West鈥檚 music, Johnny Depp鈥檚 films or Alice Munro鈥檚 short stories.

So, where does that leave Harry Potter fans who have been disappointed by Rowling鈥檚 public statements?

Different books by Rowling illustrate the two different ways in which biographical information about the author may affect readers鈥� interpretation of the work, Fileva says. Rowling鈥檚 book (written under the pen name Robert Galbraith) The Ink Black Heart, featuring a character , is an example of the first way: Facts about the author鈥檚 life may bear directly on the interpretation of the work.

When, by contrast, a transgender person who loved Harry Potter in her youth and loved Rowling feels saddened by statements Rowling made about gender, the reader may experience the book differently without reinterpreting it, Fileva says. Such a reader may think that the book is just as good as it was when she fell in love with it; it鈥檚 just that she can no longer enjoy it in the same way.听听 听听听听听听

Some art consumers are more inclined to be what Fileva calls 鈥渁estheticists鈥濃�擝arthes鈥� account of the death of the author resonates with them. Aestheticists may find it easier to separate the art from the artist in cases in which biographical information about the author is irrelevant to understanding and interpreting the work.

Whether any reader, whatever their sympathies, can separate facts about Munro鈥檚 life from the story 鈥淲hite Swans鈥� or Rowling鈥檚 public pronouncements on gender from the interpretation of her book The Ink Black Heart, Fileva says, is a different question.

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