‘Let him speak no more’

Censorship and confession have a tricky relationship, closer than one might expect. In the Church, believers are invited to confess their sins and their faith as a step toward repentance, and this is generally seen as a desirable outcome. So too, with the police, a confession is sought as a satisfactory conclusion to a process of enquiry and can often be a firm basis upon which the judgement of the offender can proceed. Indeed, as some have noted, the same scenario can be discerned on the psychologist’s couch. ¹ Confession, like censorship, is a process that frequently bears the stamp of authority, and indeed, it can often be instigated and controlled by those in authority as a method of displaying and maintaining their control. Confession, it would seem, is the reverse of censorship, a controlled act where an authority draws out and makes known what would otherwise remain unknown. What I would like to show, and I believe Shakespeare perceives, is that the acts of confession and censorship are closely intertwined, and the thread that binds them is a relationship of trust between the confessor and confessant. This is most evident when those who seek a confession find instead that they need to silence it.