The Spectator

Feedback | 26 February 2005

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issue 26 February 2005

Miller’s genius

Attention must be paid’ to Arthur Miller (Mark Steyn, ‘Death of a salesman’, 19 February) quite simply because he was the greatest dramatist of our lifetime. Briefly to answer Steyn, it was hardly Miller’s fault that his biographer failed to locate Norwich accurately; and having survived the McCarthy witch-hunt, it seems a little unfair to condemn Miller simply because he declined to join the far Right, where sadly Steyn now seems to belong. The fact that Castro and Gorbachev recognised Miller’s genius doesn’t necessarily mean that he recognised theirs. Nor was he even remotely unpatriotic — he just didn’t always care for the way his beloved country was being run.

If Mark really fancies a musical of The Crucible, as he seems to imply, let him write one. And if Arthur’s ‘sin’ was to demand a decent royalty out of Dustin Hoffman, do we assume that Steyn now writes for free?

Sheridan Morley
London EC2

Mark Steyn accuses Arthur Miller of being anti-American.

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