Inserting Modern Standards into Classic Literature — Cool?
Laurel Snyder, a local children’s author, has a great discussion on her blog about updating literature to correspond with our current views on racial stereotyping and language. Bowdlerizing, if you will.
For a museum like ours — literature-driven, historically preserved, and familiar with comments like “I was shocked to hear Mr. Harris wasn’t a racist” (thanks, visitor yesterday) — this hits pretty close to home.
Using modern standards to judge consciences of yore is a tricky business, and there are no shortage of opinons on the matter. Some argue that if the change doesn’t affect content, it’s a-okay. For others, myself included (methinks), the idea of making something “appropriate” for the present by erasing its record of the past is a big no-no.
A little guy called “Mark Twain” (maybe you’ve heard of him) sums up my perspective well:
To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man’s character one must judge it by the standards of his own time, not ours.
- translator’s preface of Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, 1897
This topic has come up at the Wren’s Nest many times before, mainly surrounding things like Harris’ use of dialect or even the character of Uncle Remus. For example, would it be crazy to remove Uncle Remus altogether from new versions and just present the stories?
So what do you think? Is preserving history worth the cost of upholding possible prejudices?
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Amelia Trace Lerner
Program Director
Lain Shakespeare
Executive Director
6 Comments to Inserting Modern Standards into Classic Literature — Cool?
Yes.
His-Story is the way that person tells the story. Unless you walk in that man’s shoes it is impossible to be judge,jury, and God. Let it be.
Are you kidding me? There is simply NO JUSTIFICATION for censorship of this kind. Racial sensitivity is out of control – any educated person should be able to understand historical contexts and I believe that it’s absolutely critical that we see things as they really were, not as we would have them.
I was downright angry when Hal Holbrook (as Mark Twain) changed the original text in his stage show in order to dumb-it-down.
Leave literature alone.
This is an interesting question, and I think it depends on the audience and medium. If you’re presenting to children and you have the opportunity to explain that social norms were different in the past, through a written forward or an in-person explanation, I would say keep the history. But if a quick synopsis is all you could do, and the goal is to get the point of the stories across to an audience unfamiliar with the nuances of the day, then I wouldn’t include the distracting racial elements of the story.
I’m grateful to have a long commute on a shuttle home to think about your blog question.
That last part is a lie, I’m not grateful at all, in fact, I now am car sick thanks to you.
[...] being insensitive or un-PC — also known as “a person who lived 100 years ago.” As usual, our argument remains: present judgement should be reserved for present [...]
I face this same problem at the East Point Historical Society. Maybe in your case but certainly in mine, I have found it very interesting that most complaints (99.9%) concerning race related issues with our collection comes from liberally motivate whites. In Saying “Liberally motivate whites” That is not meant as an insult but it is what it is, that is who it is and who is presenting the concern.
Some people over examine, place fears on what an object or work might mean to someone else. Seriously, we are presenting a history, we are showing you what the people and their time was like, we didn’t write it and because we present it doesn’t mean that we agree. Shooting the messenger. It is a thorn but it is also a teacher.