Naked Censorship: Stripping the Censors’ Discourse

Feared for its subversive potential, the English stage was subjected to the pre-production control exercised by the Lord Chamberlain for over 200 years. This inter-disciplinary paper aims to shed light on the principles that led to the establishment of theatre censorship legislation and the politics...

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Main Author: Anne Etienne
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Presses universitaires de Rennes 2013-11-01
Series:Revue LISA
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/lisa/5509
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author Anne Etienne
author_facet Anne Etienne
author_sort Anne Etienne
collection DOAJ
description Feared for its subversive potential, the English stage was subjected to the pre-production control exercised by the Lord Chamberlain for over 200 years. This inter-disciplinary paper aims to shed light on the principles that led to the establishment of theatre censorship legislation and the politics of inertia of the ensuing governments, hence offering an alternative perspective to the moral argument first utilised by Walpole and later forwarded as a final defence. In doing so, we will explore the gap between the censors’ procedures and their discourses, thereby gaining an insight into the means and hidden dynamics of this disciplinary control. This will allow us to gauge how (rapidly) different censors have adapted to internal (i.e. governmental) and external (i.e. theatrical) pressure and how these changes have affected the relationship between authors and censors. Finally, we shall question the remaining existence of censorship in the post-1968 period.The paper is based on archival research carried out at the British Library (Lord Chamberlain’s manuscript collection), the National Archives (governmental papers) and on interviews with authors and theatre practitioners.
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spelling doaj-art-b331c0e926b641d4b3f00bea6ecafa6b2025-01-06T09:03:16ZengPresses universitaires de RennesRevue LISA1762-61532013-11-011110.4000/lisa.5509Naked Censorship: Stripping the Censors’ DiscourseAnne EtienneFeared for its subversive potential, the English stage was subjected to the pre-production control exercised by the Lord Chamberlain for over 200 years. This inter-disciplinary paper aims to shed light on the principles that led to the establishment of theatre censorship legislation and the politics of inertia of the ensuing governments, hence offering an alternative perspective to the moral argument first utilised by Walpole and later forwarded as a final defence. In doing so, we will explore the gap between the censors’ procedures and their discourses, thereby gaining an insight into the means and hidden dynamics of this disciplinary control. This will allow us to gauge how (rapidly) different censors have adapted to internal (i.e. governmental) and external (i.e. theatrical) pressure and how these changes have affected the relationship between authors and censors. Finally, we shall question the remaining existence of censorship in the post-1968 period.The paper is based on archival research carried out at the British Library (Lord Chamberlain’s manuscript collection), the National Archives (governmental papers) and on interviews with authors and theatre practitioners.https://journals.openedition.org/lisa/5509censorshipHistoryShaw George Bernardtheatre
spellingShingle Anne Etienne
Naked Censorship: Stripping the Censors’ Discourse
Revue LISA
censorship
History
Shaw George Bernard
theatre
title Naked Censorship: Stripping the Censors’ Discourse
title_full Naked Censorship: Stripping the Censors’ Discourse
title_fullStr Naked Censorship: Stripping the Censors’ Discourse
title_full_unstemmed Naked Censorship: Stripping the Censors’ Discourse
title_short Naked Censorship: Stripping the Censors’ Discourse
title_sort naked censorship stripping the censors discourse
topic censorship
History
Shaw George Bernard
theatre
url https://journals.openedition.org/lisa/5509
work_keys_str_mv AT anneetienne nakedcensorshipstrippingthecensorsdiscourse