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• BRAVE WORDS: BOOKS, FATAL TO THEIR AUTHORS
  
  
  
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BRAVE WORDS: BOOKS, FATAL TO THEIR AUTHORS

Publish or perish, maybe ... but publish and perish?

An exhibit of books now on display at the Chester Fritz Library explores the fates of authors who were condemned to death owing to their literary zeal, deeply held convictions, and often to an excess of opinion about those politically, socially, or religiously powerful. Throughout history, scientists, poets, priests, and others met their fates due to the bravery (or sometimes the folly) of their outspoken published beliefs. The works of 16 writers were chosen for display, spanning the years from the Greek and Roman empires to the present day.

The tragedies attested to by these persecutions often were part of larger social upheaval. The Protestant Reformation of the 16th century was a brutal time throughout Europe, and not just for authors. It was an era of great repression by the Catholic Church toward those who challenged its authority and beliefs. William Tyndale (ca. 1495-1536) was condemned by the church and burned at the stake largely for his daring audacity to translate the Bible (Pentateuch and New Testament) into English. Up until this time it was the sole right of the church to interpret the divine word, which it did, among other ways, in the "vulgate" translation of the Bible then in use (written in Latin, a translation from the original Hebrew and Greek). Tyndale was arrested in Antwerp in 1536 as a result of a plot possibly aided by the English. Some years earlier, Tyndale earned the enmity of the English king, Henry VIII, for his religious tract "The Obedience of a Christian Man and How Christian Rulers Ought to Govern," published in 1528 and directed at the monarch. Tyndale would get his "revenge," though. Scarcely two generations later, another English monarch, James I, would call a council to publish an "authorized" version of the Bible that would steal extensively from Tyndale's supposedly heretical efforts. On display is a copy of Tyndale's Old Testament (New Haven: Yale University Press, c1992), and a copy of his
condemnation of church officials, "The Practice of Prelates" (in The Works of William Tyndale, Berkshire, England: Sutton Courtenay Press, 1964).

Another religious author silenced for his views on the Catholic Church was the Czech priest, John Hus (1373-1415). In his Treatise on the Church, which was written probably around the years 1412-14, Hus laid out his principle criticisms against dogma, clerical corruption relating to the purchase of church offices, charging fees for sacraments, and other issues. He was put on trial at the Council of Constance in 1415, found guilty, and burned at the stake. His martyrdom inspired and consolidated his religious followers into a movement called the "Hussites," which later became an influential force in the era of the Reformation. Hus' execution had an immediate impact throughout the Czech and German communities of medieval Bohemia. After his execution, Hus' followers began claiming that "the goose was not yet cooked." The phrase was a pun on the Czech word, "hus," which means "goose," and is still used today, although its origins are all but forgotten.

Socinian and Unitarian author John Biddle (16 15-1662) was imprisoned several times during his life. He generally is recognized as the father of Unitarianism in England. In 1647, he published his Twelve Arguments Drawn Out of Scripture, with the title continuing "wherein the commonly received opinion touching the deity of the Holy Spirit is clearly and fully refuted." The book was ordered burned, and Biddle was imprisoned. Personal friends in power intervened on his behalf, and eventually secured his release. But Biddle would not be silenced. Even after the Ordinance of 1648 made it punishable by death to deny the doctrine of the Trinity, he nevertheless published two anti-Trinitarian tracts that once again landed him in jail. The intervention of friends secured his release once more, but Biddle would not be free to worship and preach his views in public until the Act of Oblivion made it permissible in 1652. Still, in 1654 he again found himself brought before Parliament, this time for the publication of two published catechisms. Cromwell and Parliament disputed over Biddle's fate, and it was eventually decided that he be banished rather than again be imprisoned, this time under somewhat questionable legality. He was sent to the Scilly Islands in 1655, where he remained in exile for seven years, until 1662. When
he finally returned to England, Biddle yet again was arrested and was fined an amount he could not afford to pay. He spent five weeks in a debtors' prison, where he eventually succumbed to illness and died on the morning of September 22, 1662.

It was not always religion, or even strong conviction, that placed writers in danger. Floyer Sydenham (17 10-1787) died a pauper in jail, indirectly at least, because of his passion for translating Plato. Sadly for Sydenham, Plato did not translate into great financial reward. Sydenham Algernon Sidney was an excellent scholar of Greek who, from 1759-1780, accomplished a complete translation of the Greek philosopher's works. Because of a trifling debt that he could not then afford to pay, Sydenham was arrested in 1787, imprisoned, and forced to spend his final days in prison. It was in response to this tragic injustice that the Royal Literary Fund was established in 1790, which to this day still awards grants anonymously to British writers who experience severe financial hardship. Sydenham's works are still read today, and on display is a copy from the library's collection of Plato's dialogue, "Meno," which he translated (New York: Dutton, 1949).

Algernon Sidney was beheaded in 1683, in part for an unpublished manuscript discovered in his possession. The manuscript, which would later be posthumously published as his Discourses Concerning Government, is one of the earliest modern statements of republican ideals. Among Sidney's more inflammatory assertions was that the king derived his authority from parliament, which had the right and obligation to bring tyrannical monarchs to justice. This was more than just controversial in Restoration-era England. Charles II saw this as further evidence of Sidney's complicity in the Rye House Plot, which was a failed attempt to assassinate the king and his brother, the Duke of York, who would later rule as James II. Sidney's work would go on to exert an enormous influence on enlightenment thinkers and more than a hundred years later, Thomas Jefferson would describe Sidney's Discourses as "... probably the best elementary book of the principles of government, as founded in natural right which has ever been published in any language; and it is much to be desired in such a government as ours that it should be put into the hands of our youth as soon as their minds are sufficiently matured for that branch of study." (Sowerby's Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 111:12).

Sidney was hardly the only one to get himself into trouble with ruling powers. Among the many people who lost their heads during the French Revolution was Barnabe Farmian Durosoi. It was his efforts as editor of the Gazette de Paris that ultimately condemned him. In the early years of the 1790's, diversity of opinion was acceptable, even encouraged, because it allowed the airing of the third estate's long-held grievances. Although Durosoi was mostly (but not entirely) a monarchist, he still benefitted from the general climate of press tolerance. All that came to an end, however, after August 10th, 1792. On that day, the Legislative Assembly officially voted to depose the king, and factions seen as loyal to the monarchy were in jeopardy of their lives. That night, another noted royalist publisher, Franois-Louis Saleau, was executed by the Paris mob. In the days immediately following, the newly constituted Revolutionary Tribunal would round up all royalist authors and place them on trial. Durosoi was the first to be condemned to death by this Tribunal, and was executed on August 25, 1792.

An "honorable mention" must be given to the Greek playwright, Aristophanes (c. 450-385 B.C.). He owes a place in this exhibit for his remarkable resiliency rather than his untimely death. Aristophanes repeatedly seemed to encourage his early demise by satirizing the pre-eminent demagogue of his day, the Athenian politician Cleon. In his 1st and 2nd plays (The Banqueters and The Babylonians, both lost except for fragments), Aristophanes ridiculed and satirized Cleon, and in his 3rd play (The Acharnians), took Cleon to task for his policies during the Peloponnesian War. Later plays would target other prominent individuals, and continue to win the author fame when they were performed at the annual dramatic festival honoring the god, Dionysus.

Sadly, writers to this day often face deadly risk to publish their own views, or to expose critical circumstances taking place around the world. Daniel Pearl was a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, who was noted for the sensitive way he probed the complex international problems surrounding Muslim fundamentalist demands of the Middle East and world community. Pearl disappeared from the southern Pakistani city of Karachi on January 23, 2002. Extremists calling themselves "The National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty," captured Pearl and approximately 4 weeks later executed him. Ironically, "... though he appears to have suffered at the hands of Islamic militants angry at the West, he was particularly sensitive to sentiments in the Islamic world and committed to explaining them to his readers in the West" (Wall Street Journal, Feb 22, 2002, p. A 1+). The terrorists called for the release of Pakistani nationals being held by the U.S. at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in the wake of the military campaign in Afghanistan, as well as Pakistanis being detained in the U.S. as terrorism suspects. It also called for the U.S. to turn over F-16 fighter jets purchased by Pakistan in the late 1980s but never delivered because of U.S. sanctions related to Islamabad's nuclear-weapons program.

The exhibit is located on the Library's second floor and includes 17 profiles. It is expected to continue at least through Spring semester.

Victor Lieberman, Reference and Research Services