2008 Woodie Awards
EDITORIAL: Lysistrata performance should not be censored
Issue date: 3/2/05 Section: Commentary
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A recent debate about the possible revival of the fall Rome play, Lysistrata, raises significant issues about morality in literature. Some students are concerned that the play is vulgar, obscene, or out-right pornographic. They claim that such a play should not be performed at UD.
This attitude is a sort of close-minded self-censorship that should be avoided at a liberal arts university. One should not seek to live within tight restraints because of fear but should open one's mind to the lessons afforded by great literature.
While Lysistrata may be bawdy and full of sexual innuendo, it seems ludicrous to label it pornographic. There is no blatant nudity or sexual acts committed during the play, nor is the main point of the work to arouse carnal passions. As with other Greek drama, the play was written for a particular purpose: as an escape for an audience stricken by a decades-long war. But the reason it has come down through the millenia to students of great literature is that Lysistrata has a deeper meaning than simply a farce about women withholding sexual favors from their husbands. To discover this meaning, one must not only read the play but view it as well.
If the play did not have some deeper meaning, why would it have been included in the core curriculum? In years past, instead of reading The Frogs (another comedy laden with sexual innuendo), students were required to read Lysistrata as part of Lit. Trad. III. Additionally, it is often included as part of the basic Theater Arts I class.
Students should be wary of throwing out good literature simply because it contains some objectionable ideas or insinuations. If this mentality were to be rigidly followed, students would no longer read many of the works of Plato, including the Symposium and the Phaedrus. Nor would students read Paradise Lost because of its explicit description of the naked Eve. Such valuable works of intellectual brilliance should not be allowed to fall out of the curriculum simply because a few find certain parts objectionable.
If censorship is allowed to take hold at UD, where will it end? Could this university see book burning in its immediate future? While pornographic material is objectionable and should be condemned, one cannot assume that every work containing sexual content must be prohibited.
If one is offended by the Lysistrata performance, one could simply elect not to attend.
This attitude is a sort of close-minded self-censorship that should be avoided at a liberal arts university. One should not seek to live within tight restraints because of fear but should open one's mind to the lessons afforded by great literature.
While Lysistrata may be bawdy and full of sexual innuendo, it seems ludicrous to label it pornographic. There is no blatant nudity or sexual acts committed during the play, nor is the main point of the work to arouse carnal passions. As with other Greek drama, the play was written for a particular purpose: as an escape for an audience stricken by a decades-long war. But the reason it has come down through the millenia to students of great literature is that Lysistrata has a deeper meaning than simply a farce about women withholding sexual favors from their husbands. To discover this meaning, one must not only read the play but view it as well.
If the play did not have some deeper meaning, why would it have been included in the core curriculum? In years past, instead of reading The Frogs (another comedy laden with sexual innuendo), students were required to read Lysistrata as part of Lit. Trad. III. Additionally, it is often included as part of the basic Theater Arts I class.
Students should be wary of throwing out good literature simply because it contains some objectionable ideas or insinuations. If this mentality were to be rigidly followed, students would no longer read many of the works of Plato, including the Symposium and the Phaedrus. Nor would students read Paradise Lost because of its explicit description of the naked Eve. Such valuable works of intellectual brilliance should not be allowed to fall out of the curriculum simply because a few find certain parts objectionable.
If censorship is allowed to take hold at UD, where will it end? Could this university see book burning in its immediate future? While pornographic material is objectionable and should be condemned, one cannot assume that every work containing sexual content must be prohibited.
If one is offended by the Lysistrata performance, one could simply elect not to attend.