It was believed to have disappeared, flown away, passed into the dustbin of history. A matter of the past, censorship?
Not so fast, says Pierre Hébert, professor emeritus in literary studies at the University of Sherbrooke, in Should we (still) protect fiction?a short essay with subtitles Fights for the freedom to write and read in Quebec, which traces some important milestones in the history of literary censorship in our country. A story which, perhaps more than ever, it seems essential to remember.
“I kind of tried to turn the gauntlet inside out. That is to say, to take up this story of censorship, but by showing the importance of the fights for freedom”, confides Pierre Hébert in an interview.
As a researcher and teacher, he took a close interest in the phenomenon for several years. He is the author of a Censorship and Literature in Quebec in two volumes (with the collaboration with Patrick Nicol and Élise Salaün, Fides, 1997 and 2004) and co-author with Yves Lever and Kenneth Landry of Dictionary of censorship. Literature and cinema (Fides, 2006).
Pierre Hébert wanted to retrace in his essay some major milestones in this history, recalling that, since the arrival of the printing press here in 1764 — and even before — fiction has been placed under close surveillance. In particular during this big century of clerical censorship which extends from 1840 to 1950.
Since the turbulent adventure of The Montreal Literary Gazette (1778-1779), described as the “big bang” of Quebec literary freedom, the edifying Pastoral letters by Mgr Ignace Bourget (bishop of Montreal from 1840 to 1876) against the Canadian Institute of Montreal and its library in 1858, the Marie Calumet by Rodolphe Girard (1904), The semi-civilized of Jean-Charles Harvey (1934), until the resounding lawsuit around Lady Chatterley’s Lover of DH Lawrence in 1962 in Montreal, Pierre Hébert’s demonstration goes around the question.
In Quebec, censorship has thus moved from the cassock to the toga, from the religious to the legal – the latter often intervening at the express request of religious power…
New forms of censorship
It was therefore thought to be over, evaporated (and literary freedom, acquired), but censorship – a word that comes from the Latin censure, meaning to arbitrate or measure value — seems to have made a backdoor comeback.
Like many, Pierre Hébert has noticed the appearance, over the past ten years, of a “constellation of cases of censorship”. He lists a few of them: business Kanata/SLĀV of Robert Lepage, the multiple muddles around white niggers of americaat the University of Ottawa and elsewhere, the trial against Yvan Godbout and his poor Hansel and GretaIthe warning of the Quebec Ministry of Health against the posthumous novel by François Blais.
“These are the many cases, fairly grouped together in time, which seemed very disturbing to me, says Pierre Hébert. Especially since these are types of censorship that I never expected to see reappear. Trials, book burnings, blacklistings, pages torn out of high school history textbooks.
This series of isolated cases, each time making the headlines, sent him back to a constant which here became the framework of his reflection: the question of the status of fiction. “Clearly, fiction is discredited, discredited, even despised, misunderstood. In this respect, it has practically the same status as a statement of reality. »
In his view, the most convincing example is that of the smoking of cigarettes on stage in the theatre, which was considered by the court to be a non-artistic gesture, and therefore justiciable in the same way as smoking in the inside a public place. “This is perhaps the most emblematic case of this prerogative given to reality over fiction. From the moment that fiction loses its own function, it is likely to be subject to the same morals as reality. »
Like others, Pierre Hébert sees a “current moral turning point”. “This morality of particularisms, he writes, which contributes to the explosion of places and grounds for censorship, nourishes what I will call […] “militant censorship”. »
Censorship or self-censorship?
Whereas before, religious and legal censorship operated vertically, acting from the top down, the new forms of censorship are now rather horizontal. “What is characteristic of our time with regard to censorship is that it comes from everywhere, as power is everywhere. These are organizations, but also individuals who can now file a complaint. Hence the extreme difficulty of encircling it, of grasping it, in this kind of diffraction of power. »
A modus operandi, he underlines with humour, which brings to mind one of the lessons of the Short Catechism of yesteryear: “Where is God? God is everywhere. »
He recalls that, since the 19e century, it was Anastasie, a woman with big scissors, who represented censorship. This image is now outdated, believes Pierre Hébert, who prefers that of the hydra, this creature from Greek mythology with multiple heads that constantly grow back. An image that seems to him stronger and fairer to represent censorship today.
But if we debate a lot of moral questions, we rarely debate the “regime of discourse” that bears them. And the system of discourse in fiction, recalls Pierre Hébert, is not the same as that of a flyer from Costco or Canadian Tire. If the rights of the writer are in question, there is also reason to wonder, he believes, about the “fictional skills” of our contemporaries. And in particular that of our new “literary customs officers”, perhaps themselves victims, who knows, of the “preeminence of the spirit of seriousness” which contaminates our time.
Recalling some known episodes of self-censorship (The beginner by Arsene Bessette, The sandy paradise by Jean-Charles Harvey, all the work of Albert Laberge, as well asIn the shadow of the Orford by Alfred DesRochers), citing its pernicious effects in today’s academic world, Pierre Hébert acknowledges that it is difficult to identify, since it leaves few traces. It is the perfect poison, invisible and silent.
But is self-censorship censorship? Yes, he replies unequivocally. “I don’t remember who said a writer should never create with a shaky hand. And that shaking hand is sort of self-censorship. And Orwell illustrates well, he adds, the power of self-censorship in his 1984 when he suggests that the censorship was total because we no longer needed laws.
Neither polemicist nor inopportune, Pierre Hébert sees his book as a “public hygiene measure” in order to fight, he says, the virus of the “disartification of art”, according to Adorno’s formula.