糖心TV

David Fletcher

Censorship and self-censorship in Restoration drama

Monday 19 January, 11am-12pm, MS.05 (Zeeman Building)

The subject of this lecture is the censorship of plays in late seventeenth century England. I will explore this issue mostly through a case study of one play - The Lancashire Witches by Thomas Shadwell, first performed in 1681 at the height of the Popish Plot. This play provides a good example of attempts at unofficial forms of censorship; how formal censorship affected the text of the play; the differences between the censorship of the performed text and the uncensored published version, and finally how and why Shadwell adopted a policy of self-censorship around contested issues such as witchcraft and atheism.