Indecent Language, Sex, and Censorship in Literature Isaac Bashevis Singer

Indecent Language, Sex, and Censorship in Literature

Isaac Bashevis Singer
OCT 25, 2015

Translation by Mirra Ginsburg and B. Chertoff
Edited by David Stromberg

Lot and his Daugh­ters, Hen­drik Goltz­ius (1616) in the col­lec­tion of the Rijksmuseum.

INTRODUCTION

This essay was adapt­ed from two arti­cles, orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in Yid­dish in the Forverts, deal­ing with ques­tions of cen­sor­ship in lit­er­a­ture: “ ​‘Inde­cent’ Lan­guage and Sex in Lit­er­a­ture” (April 21, 1963) and ​“Why Cen­sor­ship is Bad for Lit­er­a­ture” (July 10, 1966). The type­scripts of these Singer-super­vised trans­la­tions by Mir­ra Gins­burg and B. Chertoff were found among Isaac Bashe­vis Singer’s papers at the Har­ry Ran­som Cen­ter. They have nev­er been published. 

Singer opens the orig­i­nal sec­ond essay this way: ​“I’ve already writ­ten on this top­ic, but the prob­lem is so rel­e­vant, that it is nec­es­sary to debate the ques­tion again.” This, along with exam­ples of oth­er essays where Singer com­bined sev­er­al arti­cles into a sin­gle work, explains the moti­va­tion behind my adapt­ing these two trans­la­tions into one essay. My guide in the edi­to­r­i­al process was Singer’s own prac­tice of prepar­ing Eng­lish lan­guage essays and lec­tures from his Yid­dish arti­cles and essays — cut­ting away rep­e­ti­tions and spe­cif­ic exam­ples in favor of broad­er ideas. Singer also tend­ed to edit out neg­a­tive for­mu­la­tions appear­ing in his orig­i­nal arti­cles in favor of pos­i­tive­ly phrased argu­ments, height­en­ing the rhetor­i­cal effect and clar­i­ty of his works. In prepar­ing this essay for pub­li­ca­tion, I have attempt­ed to apply Singer’s edi­to­r­i­al meth­ods and strate­gies — as I under­stand them — in order to dis­till these close­ly relat­ed ​“stud­ies” on cen­sor­ship into a sin­gle, coher­ent work, which I’ve called ​“Inde­cent Lan­guage, Sex, and Cen­sor­ship in Literature.” 

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