I don't think writing about real people is (on balance) that big a deal.

What if the real people (on balance) do think so?

It was wrong to ban Ullysses even if Joyce was immoral to libel people.

Ah, but Ullysses wasn't banned for the libel, it was banned for the obscenity. (Or so I have always understood.)

I understand what you're saying, David, and on one level I agree. On the other level I find it difficult to imagine the world is a better place for the existence of puppyslash. But who am I to make that distinction, where I cannot contest that the world is a better place for the existence of Dante's Inferno?

On the other hand, having never read the Inferno, can I assume that you could have a great poem without Dante's use of it to wreak vengeance on his personal enemies? I mean, is the RPF in the Inferno integral to the poem's power?

RPF is all about telling fictional stories about real living human beings who are in no way involved in the fictional process, who don't know the writers, and who don't even have the choice as to whether they'll be fictionalized. Novelists who salvage bits and pieces from their own lives and those of their families and friends are generally doing more than this. If I ever use any elements from my brother's fascinating and complicated life for a story, I'm going to do my best to make him unrecognizeable. Because I owe my art truth but I owe my brother respect for his privacy. And because, in some sense, the story isn't going to be about him, and won't pretend to be.

t shrugs helplessly

What it all comes down to for me is I'd be flattered if anyone fanficced a world I'd created, even if I thought they were missing the point with their pairings and themes, but I'd feel violated if anyone fanficced me. So, I avoid RPF under the "do unto others" clause.

Jesse, in answer to your question, I'm getting the sense that a lot of people give a free pass to comedy and/or parody where real people in fiction are concerned. I would suspect the freeness of the free pass correlates positively to the "this is obviously meant as a joke"-ness, but I've never read Sedaris and I don't speak for everyone. But it's a trend I've noticed.

I don't know how this applies to satire, or mean-spirited comedy, because I haven't seen discussion of that kind of fiction.

I'm with Auden.

Time, that is intolerant
of the brave and innocent,
And indifferent in a week,
To a beautiful physique,
Worships language and forgives
Everyone by whom it lives;
Pardons cowardice, conceit,
Lays its honours at their feet.

Dante is great *in spite of* immortalizing his enemies in Hell. Ezra Pound is a great author in spite of his anti-Semitism. (And if you can't look past either of those, I'm good with that.).

You don't get to say "Well, a great author did it, therefore it's okay if I do it too" unless your work winds up on the same shelf as Pound's, and not just because of alphabetical order. Great authors did lots of incredibly cruel, stupid, and vicious things, and these are tolerated because of the writing quality. Robert Frost was a lousy father. That doesn't mean I can be a lousy parent because I'm a poet. [Which, she added hastily, I am not. Hypothetical.]

an I assume that you could have a great poem without Dante's use of it to wreak vengeance on his personal enemies?

It's inextricably tied into the whole. A big part of his complex motivation.

Dante is great *in spite of* immortalizing his enemies in Hell.

I disagree. It may have been unkind or less than an admirable impulse, but it is a big part of the book. You cannot subtract it out and have that work. There's pettiness in it. Great works accomodate that fact.

Ezra Pound is a great author in spite of his anti-Semitism.

But I'm arguing that what Joyce and Dante did is a part of their writing process. Anti-semitism is just part of Pound. That's a big difference.

You don't get to say "Well, a great author did it, therefore it's okay if I get it too" unless your work winds up on the same shelf as Pound's

I don't agree with this. The principle doesn't disappear because of the quality of the work. And I'm not arguing that their infractions give me leave. I'm arguing that the writing process is such that this particular line is so smudged as to be defensible on anything other than opinion.

Well, there was the part where he outed his own teacher by putting him in the part of Hell reserved for homosexuals. It was, notably, the only time he addressed a Hell-resident with the formal "voi", rather than the informal.

Yeah, I'll say that Dante's use of real people he expected his audience to know (most of them dead! You can't be in Hell if you're not dead!) was integral to his writing. Because he was working out a moral system, that he expected to apply to everyone; there are several cases in Hell where he hears the very sad story of a resident, and sort of asks, Why is this guy suffering for eternity?? And Virgil explains that even people who are wronged and have sad stories get judged according to their actions, and not according to the actions of those who act against them.

Today, 700 years later, it's interesting to note that we don't condemn the same people Dante condemned when he wrote it. Ser Brunetto is evidence that homosexuality existed in Renaissance Italy, and that Dante knew about it and knew his mentor was gay, and presumably said nothing against him in life. So, backwardswise, the grand (strugglling) condemnation of homosexuality is also very good evidence for the continuity of gay life through history. Which is some interesting irony.

I don't know as how this has anything but peripherals to do with the rest of the discussion.

The principle doesn't disappear because of the quality of the work.

But the principle, for me, is that "Well, you didn't punish Sammy when HE did it!" isn't an excuse. Dante gets away with doing something I consider morally questionable because the result is great art. That doesn't make it any less morally questionable. It's the fruit of a poisoned tree.

So I retain the right to think that RPF is foul, without saying I will stop reading Dante (or Guy Gavriel Kay, for that matter.)

When did Guy Kay write RPF? or are you talking about how his fantasies are thinly-veiled historical novels about real historical figures?

I do maintain there's a difference in fictionalizing the life of someone who's dead. If they're dead, either they can't be bothered to be offended, or they've got other worries, or (if there is no afterlife) they'll never know.