Table Of ContentCensorship in Canadian Literature
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Censorship in
Canadian Literature
MARK COHEN
McGill-Queen's University Press
Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca
McGill-Queen's University Press 2001
ISBN 0-7735-2214-X
Legal deposit fourth quarter 2001
Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec
Printed in Canada on acid-free paper
This book has been published with the help of a grant
from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of
Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences
and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
McGill-Queen's University Press acknowledges the
financial support of the Government of Canada through
the Book Publishing Industry Development Program
(BPIDP) for its activities. It also acknowledges the
support of the Canada Council for the Arts for its
publishing program.
National Library of Canadian Cataloguing
in Publication Data
Cohen, Mark, 1966-
Censorship in Canadian literature
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN O-7735-2214-X
1. Censorship - Canada. 2. Censorship in literature.
3. Canadian fiction (English) - 20th century - History of
criticism, 1. Title.
PN156.c64 2001 c813'.54O9 c2001-900233-5
Typeset in Palatino 10/12
by Caractera inc., Quebec City
Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments xi
1 Introduction: Justifying Just Judgment 3
2 The Case against Censorship: Timothy Findley 21
3 The Ambivalent Artist: Margaret Atwood 49
4 In Defence of Censorship: Margaret Laurence 88
5 The Inevitability of Censorship: Beatrice Culleton and
Marlene Nourbese Philip 119
6 Conclusion: Towards a More "Just" Judgment 150
Notes 167
Bibliography 183
Index 199
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Preface
There is a large body of academic work devoted to the subject of cen-
sorship, including many books on censorship as a philosophical or
moral issue, numerous historical reviews, and several studies of the
censorship of specific works of literature. The overwhelming majority
of these inquiries focus on censorship in Europe or the United States.
This makes sense when we consider that official censorship dates back
to the advent of the printing press in Europe and that the First Amend-
ment has been an overwhelmingly important provision in American
law. It also makes sense since the most notorious literary censorship
cases have involved works - either of international stature, such as
Lady Chatterley's Lover and Fleurs du Mal, or of great popularity, such
as The Catcher in the Rye - that are European or American. Understand-
ably, then, thinking about censorship has come late to the Canadian
academy. Canada has neither a history of official censorship nor an
American-style preoccupation with free speech (the less glorified
Canadian version of the First Amendment was ensconced in the Char-
ter of Rights and Freedoms only in 1982). Furthermore, while Cana-
dian schools and libraries have frequently participated in the banning
of those foreign texts traditionally subject to censorship, there has been
little to analyse from a uniquely Canadian perspective in these inci-
dents. As a result, writing about censorship of literature in Canada
has been limited,1 consisting mostly of formal listings of texts that
have come under fire in the classroom and the public library.2
There are several possible explanations for the dearth of detailed
study of censorship involving English Canadian literature. First,
viii Preface
literary critics may have been reticent about undertaking a study that
draws extensively on disciplines outside of literature, such as philos-
ophy, law, and sociology (all of which I utilize in this book). With the
emergence of interdisciplinary studies in recent years, however, this
kind of analysis seems less unusual. Second, the relatively unified
voice with which Canadian authors have condemned censorship
attacks may have given critics the impression that the issues involved
are clear, the conclusions foregone, and that these controversies
therefore require little study. I will show that this impression is far
from the reality. The third and most compelling reason, though, is
simply that until comparatively recently Canadian literature had nei-
ther the status nor the reputation of foreign literature and was there-
fore not widely consumed in this country. Limited in its distribution,
its chances of being subjected to censorship were limited as well.
Over the course of the last thirty years, however, there has been a
dramatic change in the fate of literary writing in Canada. With the
ascendancy of Canadian literature in quality and quantity since the
1960s - what Linda Hutcheon terms the "flowering of Canadian fic-
tion" (1) - censorship has become an issue in Canadian writing for
two reasons. First, more Canadian literature is stocked by libraries
and more of it is taught in schools. An increase in the sheer volume
of Canadian books used in these institutions has led in turn to more
controversies in which Canadian literary works are the objects of
censorship attacks. With these attacks happening in their own back-
yards, Canadian writers have taken notice and responded to the cen-
sorship attacks of their writing in their writing. Second, a rise in
standing of Canadian literature internationally has given writers a
sense of confidence in commenting on censorship issues more
broadly, a feeling that writing about the Rushdie affair or pornogra-
phy or changes to Canada's obscenity laws would wield some power
in national and international arenas. Canadian writers, therefore,
have recently had occasion to think deeply and write extensively
about censorship. To put it briefly, censorship has become an issue
within the Canadian literary establishment, if not yet among critics
of Canadian literature.
It is this relationship between the growing stature of Canadian
literature and the corresponding increase in the prominence of the
issue of censorship among its writers that has led me to the three
principal figures of my analysis: Timothy Findley, Margaret Atwood,
and Margaret Laurence. Arguably among the five most prominent
authors of English Canadian literature, these three writers, partly
because of their stature, have all experienced attempts to censor their
work, and all three have responded to these attacks on their work in
ix Preface
writing. Furthermore, all three have gone beyond defences of their
own work to write about censorship in other contexts and in more
general or philosophical terms. They have chosen to do this most
directly through non-fiction (articles, memoirs, etc.), and one of the
purposes of this book is to enumerate their explicit arguments, both
to establish the writers' positions on censorship and to shed light on
the role of censorship as it appears in their fiction. My close reading
of their fictional works - The Wars and Headhunter by Findley; Bodily
Harm and The Handmaid's Tale by Atwood; and a draft of an unfin-
ished novel by Laurence - aims to uncover the positions on censor-
ship implicit within these works.
Both explicitly in their non-fiction and implicitly through their fic-
tion, these well-known authors invoke many of the most fundamen-
tal arguments regarding censorship. It is for these reasons that I have
also chosen to examine the work of Beatrice Culleton and Marlene
Nourbese Philip, who, though not yet considered to be "major"
Canadian authors, have both experienced censorship of their writing,
have commented explicitly on censorship, and, most importantly,
have conveyed their ideas on the subject through their fiction (and
in the case of Philip, through her poetry). The ideas on censorship of
all these writers are key to the development of my position on the
issue: by engaging the arguments that they raise, exposing weak-
nesses and underlining strengths, I present a new picture of censor-
ship that aims to ease the acrimonious nature of many censorship
disputes and offer suggestions for resolving some of the most trouble-
some controversies.
