Blacklisted Texts: Literature and Censorship



Many books were classified in the Index librorum prohibitorum, the list of books banned by religious and political authorities, which existed until 1966. These texts, sometimes grouped together in the "Infernos" of classical libraries, question proposals considered subversive by censors of all kinds. They raise the question of freedom of expression in literature, in all literary genres. We will thus consider the philosophical tale, through the journey imagined by Cyrano de Bergerac, impossible to publish during his lifetime, and the peregrinations of Voltaire's Candide, never recognized by its author; the theatre, through the great quarrel of Molière's Tartuffe; the poetry, through Baudelaire's famous censored collection; and Simone de Beauvoir's so-decried essay on the female condition.



Required texts:

- Cyrano de Bergerac, Voyage dans la Lune, Paris, Garnier Flammarion, 1993, ISBN-10: 2080702327

- Molière, Tartuffe, Paris, Librio, 2019, ISBN-10: 2290201030

- Voltaire, Candide, Paris, Larousse, 2011, ISBN-10: 9782035866011

- Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal, Paris, Librio, 2015, ISBN-10: 229011507X

- Simone de Beauvoir, Le Deuxième Sexe II, Paris, Folio essais, 1986, ISBN-10: 9782070323524