Cancelling old problematic works? How much oxygen should we give to ‘offensive’ artworks?

In cutting Simon’s original libretto down to suit a shorter chamber opera structure, one of the casualties was two of the main characters sharing a reading of a sonnet by the 16th French poet Ronsard. It’s a shame it had to be cut, as an extended moment of lyrical intimacy would have afforded us deeper insight into the characters and made the ending more poignant, but at the same time, the poem itself is quite problematic.

It’s one of an autobiographical sequence of sonnets and has the theme of ‘carpe diem’ familiar from other poems, but in this work Ronsard – then in his 60s -  is writing to his 16 year old niece, who had (in real life) rejected his sexual and romantic advances. You’ll regret saying no (he says in this particular sonnet), when I’m dead and you’re a lonely old woman.  It’s the basis of the well-known poem ‘when you are old and grey’ by WB Yeats, though in that version (a revision, not a translation, Yeats talks gently of lost love.)

Though the Traveller carrying an expensive, privately-bound book of poetry with him in his bag is appropriate to the period, this detail is not in the original source, so it’s Simon’s pure invention.  I asked him what the reason was for including the sonnet in his first draft. He told me:

 ‘I needed a device: something by which the old Woman would know that the Traveller, like her, is noble, and which would prompt her to reveal her nobility to him, and prompt her confession, her life-story….  The choice of the particular sonnet is to introduce the topic of love and relationships, with the ‘seize the day’ theme resonating with her decision to give everything up to go with her young lover on a ‘coup de foudre’.  Ronsard is a ‘classic’ poet and well-known enough in France at the time to be known by most upper-class people, emphasising her highly-refined background.’

A 19th century bound book.

Two interesting points arose from our discussion: the interpretation of the poem itself - the reading of historical works through the prism of modern sensibilities -  and, very relevantly to today’s ‘cancel culture’, whether it is right to use works that are problematic, even offensive, to today’s culture.

Should we read historical works through the prism of modern sensibilities?

On this subject, Simon has a different reading of the poem to me. I feel that the poet is arrogant, almost taunting Hélène, using poetry (in this and the rest of the sequence) as a manipulative device. I read his words to her almost as a more sophisticated, intelligent version of the contemporary man rejected in a bar – ‘she must be a lesbian / you’re too ugly for me anyway’ becomes ‘you’re going to die alone, old woman!’.  The age-gap is too large for me to empathise with him or relate in any way to him. Simon, however, doesn’t feel that the poem is taunting – rather, that it is quite playful,  perhaps even at the poet’s own expense; he knows he’s nearer death than her, and isn’t doing himself any favours with the poem (in real life he died less than a decade later)!

Simon notes thatRonsard is drawing on two established poetic conventions: those of carpe diem, and of immortalising the beloved. Similarly, he does not believe the poem to be truly autobiographical but instead just draws from his life in the poetic tradition: so the poem isn’t ‘active’, it doesn’t have a real-life agenda of seduction.  Simon went as far as to say that ‘it’s crude and inappropriate to read it like that’ – to overlay a modern agenda into works of a different tradition.  There would be so much more to say on both sides were there time!

Censorship and modern ‘cancel culture’…

With regards to the idea of suppressing or even removing works/ideas that are found offensive today, Simon and I are much more aligned.  I would not have had a problem including the poem in the opera: as audience we would have been twice removed from the poem’s content, as we’d be observing fictional characters reading it to each other from a published work – and there’s no sense of us condoning it. I also think we can have distaste for an artwork’s subject matter, and the author’s ethics, without resigning the work to obscurity (after all, Ronsard is not benefitting from this modern production!). There’s also a sense that it’s important to recognise that such attitudes and behaviours were once normal and are still considered a grey area – denying they exist doesn’t help anyone understand or learn from them.

Simon agrees: 

‘There are plenty of works which I find offensive, which others apparently find acceptable – this is par for the course for contemporary life, but I wouldn’t wish to suppress that kind of thing, I would simply not read it again. I would choose not to put my time and energy and attention in to them. I would instead take positive action to support my views, positively express in one’s own words and actions whatever one thinks is helpful and true and beautiful – support positive values, not legislate about what others can say and write. It’s a profoundly insecure culture that seeks to legislate against or suppress points of view which a majority, or even powerful minority, find offensive. And even to edit history, to remove from history, things which offend contemporary sensibilities: that impulse is mind-boggling.  Ronsard has an influence and place in literature: we can comment on it, analyse it, make whatever points we want, but to remove what we find distasteful or uncomfortable… just look away from it, but don’t deny its existence! We need to look things squarely in the face, we need to allow ourselves to be offended, to see things whole, to see them as they were, and not dismiss the best of something because of its worst aspects.’

When we consider that we are already removing, re-writing or censoring books, and that people have recently been arrested at protests for wearing logos on their T-shirts deemed offensive to others, perhaps it’s not too far-fetched to draw on the 19^th century writer Heinrich Heine: ‘those who burn books will in the end burn people’.

I would be interested to hear others’ views – in today’s parlance, how much oxygen should we give to ‘offensive’ artworks?

Janet Oates