Pound's reputation within literary circles, when he was still alive, was much like how rock critics are dealing with Morrissey presently.
The poet W.H. Auden's defense of the idea of continuing to provide a platform to Pound's poetry even while rejecting his politics is a model that might help those of us who love Morrissey's songs continue to love them even as the man's words and actions outside of the realm of art are bewildering.
Auden on No-Platforming Pound | Edward Mendelson | The New York Review of Books (nybooks.com)
Free account required to read the above. Here's one quote from Auden to his publisher, who was keen to ban Pound's poems from an upcoming publication, that I liked especially:
On this issue: “Shall a book be judged by what it contains or by the character of the man that wrote it, or, to use your terms, does a man who has sacrificed any claims to the title of ‘American’ thereby sacrifice any claims to the title of ‘Poet’?”, I have only two points to add to what Mr Gannet[t] and others have already said. Firstly that the question of how good or bad Pound’s poems are is irrelevant (I do not care for them myself particularly); the issue would be the same if some hick newspaper refused, for the same reasons, to print some scribbler they had been in the habit of printing. (Vice versa, of course, if Pound were the greatest poet in the world, it would not entitle him to more lenient penalties for treachery.) Secondly, the issue is far more serious than it appears at first sight; the relation of an author to his work is only one out of many, and once you accept the idea that one thing to which a man stands related shares in his guilt, you will presently extend it to others; begin by banning his poems not because you object to them but because you object to him, and you will end, as the nazis did, by slaughtering his wife and children.
