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Though I can appreciate a great work, I have some trouble separating the person and the work. Though I can see that a work is great, if I know things about the person that I find distasteful or repugnant, I can't reconcile the fact that this person, who committed those actions, could produce such an amazing piece of work. It dampens my excitement a bit, and makes me question the work a lot more than if I don't know anything about the author. Most people in this thread seem able to separate these things, to me it depends on what exactly we're talking about. Because the fact is that when that person creates that work, the work and the actions are not entirely segregated, there are connections and they become more apparent and disturbing when one is aware of both instances.
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Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.
Fernando Pessoa, 1918
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