The Censorship of the William Books and the Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Children's classics translated from English under Franco: the censorship of the William books and the Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Craig, Ian S The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author For additional information about this publication click this link. http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/jspui/handle/123456789/1711 Information about this research object was correct at the time of download; we occasionally make corrections to records, please therefore check the published record when citing. For more information contact [email protected] CHILDREN'S CLASSICS TRANSLATED FROM ENGLISH UNDER FRANCO: THE CENSORSHIP OF THE WILLIAM BOOKS AND THE AD VENTURES OF TOM SA WYER A PhD Thesis by IAN S. CRAIG, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London BIBL LONOIN. UNIV. Abstract The thesis documents the censorship histories of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Richmal Crompton's William books under Franco, and analyses these censorship histories in terms of the changing character of the regime. Previously unconsulted primary sources are used, such as censors' reports and translation proofs held in the Archivo General de la Administración del Estado at Alcalá de Henares. The censors' reports demonstrate that children's literature and translated literature were treated as special cases by the regime, and that censorship was particularly harsh in both areas. These findings demonstrate the crucial importance of attitudes to childhood and foreignness in the Francoist ideological scheme. The censorship histories of Tom Sawyer and the William books reveal some surprising facts. The William books began to be persecuted by the censors in late 1942, precisely the moment when the regime was seeking a rapprochement with the Allied powers as the course of the War turned in the latter's favour. This prohibition cannot be understood without exploring the factors which differentiate children's literature from adult literature in the context of Francoism. The books' peculiarly English character also had a vital bearing on how they were censored. The history of Tom Sawyer in Spain demonstrates the effect of literary status on censorship practice. Early in the regime, the censors generally considered Tom Sawyer to be a work for adults. From the mid-1950s, however, children's literature was inscribed as a special category in censorship legislation, and the censors began to view editions of the work as specifically intended for children. Tom Sawyer thus encountered censorship problems in the later years of the regime, supposedly more liberal than the earlier period. Again, these problems would be inexplicable without examining the evolution of the publishing industry and Francoist attitudes to literature and the child. The thesis also provides a detailed analysis of the type of suppressions imposed on the books studied, under the following headings: religion; love, sexuality and gender; authority and politics, nation and race; crime, terror and violence. 2 CONTENTS Acknowledgements: 7 CHAPTER ONE: FRANCOISM and THE NEW RACE 8 Introduction 8 Part I: Ideology and the New Race 13 (i) The Fundamental Precepts of Francoist Ideology 13 (ii) Hierarchy and Property 14 (iii) Enthusiasm versus Irony 15 (iv) War and Patriotism 17 (v) Conformism 19 (vi) Xenophobia 21 Part II: The Evolution of the Regime 25 (i) The War Years 25 (ii) Post-War Isolation 28 (iii) Cold War Reconciliation 29 (iv) Schizophrenia: The mid-1960s to 1975 30 Part III: Literature, Children's Sexuality and Gender Roles 33 Conclusion 44 Notes 47 CHAPTER TWO: FRANCOIST CENSORSHIP 52 Introduction 52 Part I: The Character and Evolution of the Censorship Apparatus 52 (i) The Legislative Origins of Francoist Censorship 52 (ii) Early Francoist Censorship: The Arias Salgado years (1941-1962) 56 (iii) Later Francoist Censorship: Fraga and beyond 62 Part II: The Censorship of Translated Literature 73 3 Part III: The Censorship of Children's Literature: 83 (i) Introduction 83 (ii) The 1956 Reglamento 85 (A) Religion (B) Sexuality (C) Society and Behaviour (D) Irony (iii) The 1967 Estaluto 97 (iv) Censorship Practice in the Area of Children's Literature 100 (v) Conclusion 104 Notes 105 CHAPTER THREE: CENSORSHIP HISTORIES: 109 Introduction 109 Part I: The Earlier Period 114 (i) William 1938-1956 114 (ii) Tom Sawyer 1938-1956 125 (iii) Conclusion 133 Part II: The Later Period 134 (i) William 1957-1981 134 (ii) Tom Sawyer 1957-1981 144 Conclusion 168 Notes 171 CHAPTER FOUR: RELIGION 176 Introduction 176 (i) Mockery of the clergy 177 (ii) Mockery of religious scripture and ceremony 183 (iii) Other religious allusions 196 Conclusion 198 Notes 200 4 CHAPTER FWE: LOVE, SEXUALITY and GENDER 202 Introduction 202 (i) Kissing and flirtation 203 (ii) Premature love 212 (iii) Misogyny and femininity 217 (iv) Adult sexuality 223 Conclusion 225 Notes 227 CHAPTER SIX: AUTHORITY and POLITICS, NATION and RACE 228 Introduction 228 Part I: Authority and Politics 228 (i) Parents, teachers and other adults 228 (ii) The police 244 (iii) Political figures 246 Part II: Nation and Race 254 (i) Patriotism 254 (ii) Racism 258 Conclusion 263 Notes 265 CHAPTER SEVEN: VIOLENCE, TERROR and CRIME 268 Introduction 268 (i) Violence and Terror 271 (ii) Crime 281 Conclusion 289 Notes 291 CONCLUSION 293 Notes 301 5 APPENDIX A: THE WILLIAM BOOKS in SPAI1 (1938-1981) 302 APPENDIX B: TOM SAWYER in SPAiN (1938-1980) 313 APPENDIX C: OTHER WORKS by MARK TWAIN 324 BIBLIOGRAPHY 326 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my particular gratitude to the following people: Abigail Lee Six, for her wise and attentive supervision; my parents John and Barbara Craig for their unflagging moral and financial support; Christopher Pollard for his informed appraisal and proofreading of the final text; the staff of the Archivo General de Ia Administración del Estado in Alcalá de Henares for their help in retrieving and deciphering censorship documents; the Editorial Molino for the information they generously supplied; the British Academy, for their generous funding during the first three years of the project. For their scholarly expertise and advice, I am indebted to Julian Blake, Peter Bush, Philip Deacon, Alan Deyermond, Pepe Esteban, Josep-Antón Fernández, Omar GarcIa, Nick Harrison, Jo Labanyi, Carmen Lopez Landa, Ane Ortega, Verity Smith and Jane Whetnall. Finally, I would like to thank the following for their generous assistance in various capacities: Venerando Aihambra, Juan Barceló, Jay Hammond, Ana Lima, Ximena Orüs, Kay Russell, German Sanchez, Andrés Sorel. 7 CHAPTER ONE: FRANCOISM and THE NEW RACE The child is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a self-propelled wheel, a first movement, a sacred 'Yes'. For the game of creation, my brothers, a sacred 'yes' is needed. (Friedrich Nietzsche)' Introduction In 1985, Geraldine Cleary Nichols wrote that 'the field of children's literature in the Hispanic world is vast and largely unexplored [...] in the case of children's literature in postwar Spain, an obvious approach, the socioliterary or contextual, has been overlooked until now'. 2 One of the principal aims of the present dissertation is to remedy the continuing dearth of analysis - despite Nichols's own informative contribution - relating to the sociopolitical conditioning of the children's literature market in Franco's Spain. More specifically, I shall argue that the Francoist censorship apparatus regarded children's literature as a category requiring particular vigilance, and that the censors' interventions in the area of children's literature were therefore different in character from those made in adult literature. I shall also assert that the evolution of Francoist censorship practice in the area of children's literature diverges markedly from that of adult literature, and that the way in which particular children's books may have been censored by the regime therefore cannot be surmised merely by reference to existing knowledge regarding the character and evolution of the censorship apparatus overall (discussed in Chapter 2). Much of the evidence I shall adduce to support the argument that children's literature was treated differently by Franco's censors relates to the regime's concept of foreignness and the dangers of foreign culture. As we shall see in Chapters 2 and 3, Francoist censorship policy in the area of children's literature was especially conditioned by notions of national identity and ethnic purity, with the consequence that foreign books were subjected to particularly close scrutiny if it was felt they were intended for a juvenile readership. In order to assess the impact of this additional xenophobia, Richmal Crompton's William books and Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer have been chosen, by way of example, as the principal texts of this dissertation (hereafter sometimes referred to for convenience as 'the principal works').3 Further reasons for choosing these works are discussed in Chapter 3, below. 8 In order to contextualize the censorship of particular children's works described in later chapters, the present chapter addresses the reasons underlying the particular Francoist preoccupation with the child. In this regard, it is necessary to recall that the Franco regime, at least initially, was closely modelled on Italian Fascism and, a little later, Nazism. It is well known that these movements swept to power because they promised clarity, unity and, above all,

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