ABSTRACT
Can art in general and literature in particular be really ‘made tongue-tied by authority’ as Shakespeare writes in Sonnet 66, l. 9? A single, straightforward answer to this complex question is certainly not possible, as the present volume argues. It all depends on the period, the place, the local culture and the nature of the political and/or religious forms of pressure on the part of the authorities, as well as on the goals pursued by the censors (which notoriously fluctuate throughout the ages), the personalities of the targeted writers and the desires and abilities of their various readers.
