Banned books from the 15th Century to the 20th Century: June 2012

SUMMARISE AND ORGANISE YOUR RESEARCH FINDINGS INTO ONE FINAL POST.

My topic is Banned books from the 15^th Century to the 20^th Century.

I found Google and Wikipedia my best sources of information for all blogs, and went in and out of websites until I had the information I wanted to present for my blog. I wanted to keep the reader interested in what I was writing so I chose books like Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Fanny Hill which still has a lot of controversy attached to the book. I also was conscience about presenting a different genre every week.

My first subheading is 15^th Century banned book. Here I chose a book I had recently ‘tried’ to read (it gave me a headache so I stopped for a while) which is Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’. It was first printed in 1472 and was first deemed offensive in Portugal and Spain. In April 2012 there was an article in The Telegraph about the book being removed in the school curricula.

This book wasn’t hard to find on the internet and once I had made up my mind to write about it, there was plenty of information to gather about Dante (I wish I could say the same for the other centuries!).

My second subheading is 16^th Century banned book is.....

Here I wrote about William Tyndale who was the first person to translate the New Testament into the English language in 1525-1526 and used Google to find my research.

Tyndale was so threatened by The Church of England that he fled to Antwerp and had his translated bible smuggled into England and Scotland. Interestingly enough only one copy of the first edition exists, and the British Museum paid $2 million for it in 1948.

My third subheading is banned in the 17^th Century.
Again Google served me well. It was just a matter of being patient and going through websites to find the right information that was relevant and interesting to put into my blog.

The book I wrote about is William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Written in 1610 or 1611 the book belongs to the genre of Elizabethan romantic plays. It was banned as part of an ousted Mexican- American ethnic’s studies program in which it was said that this book ‘promotes resentment towards a race or class of people’. I haven’t read this book so I can’t comment on whether this book actually does this but millions of people have read The Tempest and I guess it may be a minority that views this book as ‘promoting resentment’ but it still remain a classic book.

My fourth subheading is 18^th Century banned book goes out to....
Now that the Centuries are getting closer to the 21^st Century, banned books are getting easier to find with much more information on the net. Here I talk about John Cleland’s ‘Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure?’

First published in 1748 and banned in 1749 I was quite shocked myself at the detailed sex scenes of this book. I’m sure if it was written today it probably wouldn’t get a second glance but back in the 1700’s, it caused quite a stir.

This book is essentially a love story, a historical chronicle and an ode to innocence lost.

There was a bit on the net about this book but Wikipedia was a good source of information and I was using the site a lot more for my future blogs.

My fifth subheading is 19^th Century banned book goes out to...
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

I had read this book a couple of years ago and have to disagree with it being banned. I can see why it would upset many people, especially back in 1851 when it first appeared as a 40 week serial in National Era.

The book is a real eye opener to what was happening to African American people/slaves back in the 1800’s and even Stowe admitted it was a work on fiction (although she does state that it is based on people she knew and stories she heard).

There was plentiful websites with history on this book, again Google being my main source of information and allowing me to go in and out of websites until I got the information I needed. Again, it was getting easier to locate relevant information as the centuries were getting closer to the 21^st Century.

My final subheading and conclusion is 20^th Century banned book.
Here I chose another favourite book of mine which is Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.

It was first published in 1960 and the story is told through the innocent eyes of a six year old girl named Scout.

Again, I must say that I see no reason why this book was banned. She does use the “N” word a few times but really, it is so beautifully written and easy to read with a sweet innocence about the book.

For Harper Lee to use the words ‘damn’ and ‘whore’ back in the 60’s caused a great controversy, but really my personal view is that it is a brilliant book that should be read by all high school students at least once in their school curriculum.

Overall banned books was a great, interesting and diverse topic to chose and I found at the beginning of my search, not a lot of information but as the centuries progressed, so did my results.

Wikipedia was interesting and allowed me to hit hyperlinks and go in and out of the searches until I found what I wanted to put into my blog. It was sometimes a long process to find the right information but Google proved to be a great search engine and I found reliable sources in the form of newspaper articles and other peoples blogs.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

15^TH CENTURY
Squires, N 2012, Dante's Divine Comedy 'offensive and should be banned', Telegraph Media Group, viewed 9th April 2012.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/9140869/Dantes-Divine-Comedy-offensive-and-should-be-banned.html

Cabinet 7: The Italians 2010, Special Collections, University of Otago Library, viewed 9th April 2012.
http://library.otago.ac.nz/exhibitions/bannedbooks/index.php

16^TH CENTURY
Antwerp 2012, Wikipedia, viewed 25^th April 2012.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antwerp

Illuminations and Epiphanies 2012?, Banned books, viewed 25^th April 2012.
http://www.sanftleben.com/Banned%20Books/collection3.html
The History of the Bible in English 2008, Greatsite Marketing, viewed 25^th April 2012.
http://www.tyndale-bible.com/

The History of the Bible in English 2008, Greatsite Marketing, viewed 25^th April 2012.
http://www.tyndale-bible.com/tyndale-bible-history.html

http://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/william-tyndale.html

17^TH CENTURY

The Tempest Study Guide 2012, eNotes, viewed 25^th April 2012.
http://www.enotes.com/tempest/

Golgowski, N 2012, Shakespeare work axed in Arizona schools as law bans 'ethnic studies' , Associated Newspapers Ltd, viewed 25^th April 2012.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2087667/Shakespeares-The-Tempest-banned-Arizona-schools-law-bans-ethnic-studies.html

18^th Century
Cleland, J, 2011, Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, ebooks Adelaide, viewed 17^th May 2012.
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/cleland/john/c624f/index.html

Banned erotic romance, Google sites, viewed 17^th May 2012
http://sites.google.com/site/fannyhillbook/

Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, 2012, Goodreads Inc., viewed 17th May 2012.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1424731.Fanny_Hill_or_Memoirs_of_a_Woman_of_Pleasure

Fanny Hill, 2012, Wikipedia, viewed 17^th May 2012.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Hill

19^th Century
Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Wendy’s review, 2008, Blogspot, viewed 21^st May 2012
http://bannedbookschallenge.blogspot.com.au/2008/03/uncle-toms-cabin-wendys-review.html

Banned book – Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 2008, Blogger, viewed 21^st May 2012
http://www.forgetfulone.com/2008/10/banned-book-uncle-toms-cabin.html

Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 2012, Answers Corporation, viewed 21^st May 2012
http://www.answers.com/topic/uncle-tom-s-cabin

20^th Century
Why was To Kill a Mockingbird banned from schools?, 2012, Answers Corporation, viewed 17^th May 2012
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_was_To_Kill_a_Mockingbird_banned_from_schools

To Kill a Mockingbird, 2012, Wikipedia, viewed 17^th May 2012
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Kill_a_Mockingbird

VIDEO AND IMAGES

VIDEO LINK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DxqbRRQtaLc

IMAGES: