Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T22:10:18.594Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Interdisciplinary Shakespeare in the Socialist Republic of Romania. A Comment on Official Censorship and Subversive Practices

from History, Memory, and Ideological Appropriation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2014

Dana Chetrinescu Percec
Affiliation:
The University of Timisoara
Get access

Summary

The word censorship cannot be separated from a scenario of violence and fire. Censorship is traditionally defined as an act coming from the Church or from the State. In the modern sense, it is defined as the use of governmental power to control speech and other forms of human expression. In the daily game of freedom and coercion, what is censored may range from specific words to entire concepts, and the ostensible motive of censorship is to stabilize or improve the society over which the government has control. Censorship is regarded as a typical feature of dictatorships and other authoritarian political systems. Some thinkers understand censorship to include attempts to suppress points of view or ideas such as negative propaganda, media manipulation, or disinformation. But censorship has also become known as a practice that may also give writing an extraordinary impact and credibility.

In an article on censorship and poetry in communist Romania, Adam J. Sorkin notices this inherent paradox – that the more censored one piece of writing is, the more valuable it becomes – summarizing it, symbolically, with the help of a scene from John Milton's Paradise Lost. In Book XII, the Archangel Michael, before expelling Adam and Eve from Eden, promises that the result of the Fall will be something better for man in a future time, when “[…] all this good of evil shall produce, / And evil turn to good; more wonderful / Than that which by creation first brought forth / Light out of darkness!” (XII.469–72). The fortunate fall means that what on the surface is an irremediable catastrophe finally turns to good.

Type
Chapter
Information
Shakespeare in Europe
History and Memory
, pp. 205 - 214
Publisher: Jagiellonian University Press
Print publication year: 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×