What do writers know about literature?

Doris Lessing once gave a lecture (not entirely tongue in cheek) in which she asserted that English Literature Departments are the natural enemy of the writer.  She was right of course.  They are.  What do writers know about literature?  Writers' heads are stuffed with the stuff of literature of course but you don't judge the comfiness of an armchair by the stuffing although if the quality of the stuffing is poor you will soon notice.  What do I know about writers anyway?

I know that Dylan Thomas used to put out beer bottles instead of milk bottles when he lived in Cwmdonkin in Swansea.  I know this because my friend's gran used to live opposite him and she told us.  Eye witness account see.  I also know he chose to live in one of the most beautiful places on God's earth, Laugharne.  Lucky chap.

I also know that Jane Austen declined to marry a chap called Harris Bigg-Wither.  In her day a married lady novelist was obliged to be known by her husband's name.  Would we ever have heard of Jane Austen if she had been credited as Mrs Bigg-Wither or been able to sit through an A-level course  without sniggering.  I think not.  Come to that would she have been able to hear herself referred to as the same without dissolving into tears of laughter.  It's a name that was bound to be fraught with difficulty for anyone with a sense of humour, a sense that Mr B.-W himself presumably lacked or he would have gone just with the Bigg or the Wither but never both.  Frankly I wonder if he ever existed at all.  I think she made him up.