Annotated Bibliography on Censorship

I have really enjoyed researching an overarching theme in each of the units, and especially in this unit on printed knowledge, which is how knowledge has been controlled and thus used to create dichotomies between those who "know" and those who don't "know."  Knowledge seems to have always been used to place one group above another through putting prices on the knowledge, controlling the language of the knowledge, and, as I have more recently researched, through censorship of knowledge.  That's a concept: The ability to manipulate knowledge, even to the ability to remove it completely from a referable source, creates even more power in the hands of the censor.

Below is an annotated bibliography of several books I found about the early beginnings of censorship in the printing world.



Butler, Martin. "Ecclesiastical Censorship Of Early Stuart Drama: The Case Of Jonson's The Magnetic Lady."Modern Philology Vol. 89 No. 4. The University of Chicago Press, 1992.  Butler uses Ben Jonson's play The Magnetic Lady, published in 1641, to demonstrate the methods of censorship in early print history.  Originally censored for its reported abuse of scripture and holy language, the censorship of the play argues that early censorship had more bark than bite. (I found this work through the citations of Dutton's book---as noted below. 

Dutton, Richard.  Licensing, Censorship and Authorship in Early Modern England: Buggeswords.  New York, N.Y.: Palgrave, 2000.  Dutton provides a brief history of the constructions of early modern writing and theatre in the light of the practices of licensing and censorship, focusing on the consequences of such censorship and licensing on our modern-day readings of the early modern texts, including Shakespeare, Middleton, Marlowe, and others.(I found this book by just looking through books in the "Reference" section at the BYU Harold B. Lee Library.)

Shuger, Deborah K. Censorship and Cultural Sensibility: the regulation of language in Tudor-Stuart, England. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.  Shuger describes some seventeenth century forms of censorship.  She writes of the influence of Christianity and the Catholic Church, and also of the government, specifically in the region of and surrounding Tudor-Stuart, England.  The last chapter of the essay focuses specifically on ideological censorship in printed materials, as the rules and patterns for censorship seemed to be influenced by other forces.  This essay also illuminates at least in part some of the reasons for larger political crises during this era. (I found this book through searching other books for censorship in the "Law" section of the Library on the first floor.  This is actually where I started my search, figuring that books on censorship would likely be in the "Law" section. I guess I got lucky!)

Israel, Jonathan I.  Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670-1752.  Oxford University Press, 2006.  This source relates the history of the Enlightenment in lieu of several individual enlightened thinkers' struggles to publish their groundbreaking new theorems and written (printed) works throughout Europe.  In some countries, such as England, Germany, Italy, and France, censorship became a way for the church or government to stop the enlightened thinkers from publishing their works challenging traditional ideals; while in other places, such as with the Dutch, some viewed censorship as a way to preserve ideological ideals and ecclesiastical authority. (I found this source through searching Google Books. . .definitely the easiest method so far!)

Loades, D. M. "The Theory and Practice of Censorship in Sixteenth-Century England" Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Fifth Series, Vol. 24, pp. 141-157.  Royal Historical Society, 1974.  Loades writes of the effects of political strife beginning with Henry VIII.  As a new wave of religious protest began in Tudor England, new translations of the Bible began to be created, influenced by the creation and popularization of the printing press.  This opened up new forms of (print, speech, etc.) and motives for statutes for censorship of such religious "heresy".  (I found this essay through the BYU Harold B. Lee Library online search catalog and then found in the "History" section of the Library.)