AIBU to think outdated terms in literature should be changed?

[ValerieCupcake]

I'm reading a book at the minute. I am not going to share the title, but it is historical fiction. Set in Victorian London. It was written only about 4 years ago. But it uses words that are now inappropriate. Dwarf, midget and the n-word. This is an attempt to replicate speech and terms of the time. But should this be allowed?

I find it uncomfortable. But that is how they spoke. It is not allowed on TV. So should it be in literature?

@Clymene but that's my point, people DO write historical fiction using entirely modern language, and then say oh, but we must have the offensive terms left in, for accuracy...as if we couldn't possibly guess than a historical character (already inaccurately speaking in mostly modern english) could be e.g. racist through their actions rather than needing them to use SPECIFIC words.

We can't learn from history if we cancel out the bad stuff

I think this is an important point, and seeing books in context can be a valuable learning tool

For example I have a copy of Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" under the original title, which I only really keep because it was part of my late mum's collection. Obviously some of the language is hideous, but it's also a pretty good indicator of how far we've moved on, even though that's no reason to be complacent

No absolutely not! If it's a story set in modern times then it shouldn't be in there, but if it's accurate for the time the story is set then I think it's absolutely fine!

YABU. If history is only portrayed as a reflection of modern day values and standards how do we learn from our mistakes? IMO it’s more dangerous to shelter people like this.

I think a decent writer ought to be able to give the flavour of period language without using terms that they know full well are offensive.

Writers of historical fiction don't generally aim for perfect authenticity anyway, do they? Otherwise Bernard Cornwell would be having his Vikings wandering around speaking Norse, and Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet would be a whole lot less understandable.

I read a piece a while back by two historical authors who were explaining that sometimes, you have to avoid the actual historical terms because they just don't sound right to a modern ear - so to make it feel authentic, you have to be inauthentic. An example would be that Jacquetta is a perfectly good medieval name, but to our modern ears it sounds a bit Sharon-and-Tracy so you're unlikely to get a medieval heroine with that name.

Different issue if we're talking about writers using language that's become offensive since they wrote, but if this is 2015, I'd tend to think the author lacked imagination.

I write historical fiction, and when I do, I have to walk a line between (1) language that reflects the sensibilities of characters at a particular historical period, which will include racism, sexism, ableism, superstitions, religious relief, misapprehensions of geography etc and (2) the people who will be reading these novels in the 21st century.

However, I get impatient with something like Game of Thrones which has people justifying the fact that it regularly uses graphically-depicted casual sexual violence against women by saying 'Well, that's what it was really like in medieval times women's bodies were preyed upon! It's realistic! WE're saying violence against women is BAD' Which is pretty much totally irrelevant to the fact that the TV series amps up the sexual violence, invents new characters to be its victims, and amplies the sexual violence of characters already established as violent sadists all it proves is that there's nothing like the graphically-depicted sexual torture of a young girl to do wonders for your ratings.

Likewise I think a minority of contemporary writers of popular historical fiction are careless and blasé or actively enjoy throwing racist and sexist terms about entirely gratuitously. It can be a cheap way of demonstrating who the bad guys are, when the hero or heroine is all peace and love with stigmatised ethnic minorities etc.

Oh God! I thought I was depressed yesterday but now I'm really depressed.

Sometimes I'm glad I'm old. It's going to get worse, isn't it? The Nazi book burning was the 'Säuberung', a literary cleansing of what was perceived as un-Germanic spirit. This suggestion isn't many steps away from that belief. And who decides? Who gets to be Joseph Goebbels? Sheesh!

YABU
Historical fiction is supposed to be historically accurate otherwise it would be fantasy fiction. Whitewashing history to misrepresent it as some racism, sexism, ableism-free golden time for humans would be ethically wrong to do.

Your comfort is less important than speaking the truth in literature.

where is this authenticity of voice when it comes to using language that isn't recognised today? You can't say it's authentic when the only historically accurate language used is the offensive terms, and everything else is written in modern English.

@Thatswhyimacat Nope. If you are writing speech from the 1930s gang warefare you're not going to use modern terms, are you? If you're writing Peaky Blinders you're not going to have Thomas Shelby say "oi, you person of colour, get over here" it would be ridiculous. It is entirely possible to write the narrative in a way that a modern reader can understand without using outdated racial slurs, but have the actual characters use the language they would have used when the book was set. That is what makes good writing and it is part of the reason that i cast aside with great force so many modern books set in the past.

There's a reason the writers of Downton Abbey were so roundly criticised for the dialogue. There is no way a Matthew Crawley in 1921 would talk about "a steep learning curve". it is jarring in film, TV or in a novel.

Read some George Orwell. It's scary to talk about erasing and rewriting the reality of the past. We need to understand and be exposed to it!

@PleaseBeSeated
I agree with you re historical fiction, the characters and story line may be fictional but their outlook, time and place has to be as historically accurate as possible.

Just wanted to add that Game of Thrones is a dystopian fantasy fictions. I do agree it gets to be torture porn almost. Handmaids Tale is along similar lines. The authors seem to enjoy thinking up new ways to violate and torture women. I choose not to watch things like that. I wonder if watching such things does influence young minds towards misogyny though.

@SVRT19674

Woke censorship No thanks. YABU.

So would you be happy for your DC to read that book and potentially repeat the language in it?

@Brefugee in the scenario you use I would question whether that line needs to be written at all - what does it add? If it's crucial to the story them go ahead, but scripted shows aren't documentaries and aren't obliged to use marginalised people's historical pain for your entertainment and desire for historical accuracy. I think black people are entitled to be able to watch bloody Peaky Blinders without hearing racial slurs.

@EmpressCixi

YABU Historical fiction is supposed to be historically accurate otherwise it would be fantasy fiction. Whitewashing history to misrepresent it as some racism, sexism, ableism-free golden time for humans would be ethically wrong to do.

Your comfort is less important than speaking the truth in literature.

Does your desire for 'truth in literature' extend to every single detail? Or is it just the racist terminology you're invested in seeing preserved?

Just curious.

So would you be happy for your DC to read that book and potentially repeat the language in it?

If they're old enough to read those kinds of books they're old enough to understand the difference in time periods and language used.

Unless you're also expecting them to walk round referring to people as thee, thy and thou.

@Bideshi

Oh God! I thought I was depressed yesterday but now I'm really depressed.

Sometimes I'm glad I'm old. It's going to get worse, isn't it? The Nazi book burning was the 'Säuberung', a literary cleansing of what was perceived as un-Germanic spirit. This suggestion isn't many steps away from that belief. And who decides? Who gets to be Joseph Goebbels? Sheesh!

I'm sorry but what an absolutely fucking ridiculous post. Wanting to be more sensitive about language which dehumanises and offends people is nothing like the Nazis, it's the opposite of the Nazis, and it's trivialising and ignorant of you to make the comparison. The Nazis didn't give a shit about hurting people, the motives for their bookburning were much more sinister.

And historical fiction is never accurate, that's why it's in the fiction section, not the non-fiction, where you'll find the history books.

@Bideshi

Oh God! I thought I was depressed yesterday but now I'm really depressed.

Sometimes I'm glad I'm old. It's going to get worse, isn't it? The Nazi book burning was the 'Säuberung', a literary cleansing of what was perceived as un-Germanic spirit. This suggestion isn't many steps away from that belief. And who decides? Who gets to be Joseph Goebbels? Sheesh!

What a ridiculous overreaction.

People have been talking about censoring unpalatable bits of fiction from the past for centuries, long before the Nazis.

An example that springs to mind is the suggestion we censor Othello's blackness, because it's be so 'offensive' to imagine a black man and a white woman, and it'd be politer to picture him as a 'light tan'.

See, censorship of past literature doesn't invariably come from a place of bleeding-heart liberalism, either ...

Does your desire for 'truth in literature' extend to every single detail? Or is it just the racist terminology you're invested in seeing preserved?

I'd want accuracy across the board. I'm not sure why people wouldn't.

An example that springs to mind is the suggestion we censor Othello's blackness, because it's be so 'offensive' to imagine a black man and a white woman, and it'd be politer to picture him as a 'light tan'.

I have never seen any discussion about this. When did I miss that?

@BoredZelda

Does your desire for 'truth in literature' extend to every single detail? Or is it just the racist terminology you're invested in seeing preserved?

I'd want accuracy across the board. I'm not sure why people wouldn't.

Because most of us wouldn't be able to read a considerable amount of historical fiction written with perfect accuracy, would we?

@BoredZelda

An example that springs to mind is the suggestion we censor Othello's blackness, because it's be so 'offensive' to imagine a black man and a white woman, and it'd be politer to picture him as a 'light tan'.

I have never seen any discussion about this. When did I miss that?

There's no reason you should know about it! It's just an example - I had to study it for A Level and taught it a few years ago: basically, at various points in the history of the play, people have argued that Shakespeare represented something offensive when he made Othello black, and 'modern' people would find it much nicer and less offensive if they picture him as just slightly tanned. It's a racist view, obviously; the point is just that 1) wanting to censor historical fiction isn't something new that happened with the Nazis and 2) wanting to censor historical fiction isn't necessarily to do with being anti-racist; history isn't a perfect progression from racism to anti-racism.

Blanket rules are almost never appropriate in literature - the use of a specific pejorative may be completely appropriate in the context of the time in which the book is set and the nature of the use within that (dialogue, for example, is very different to narrative use). Authors should be free to use whatever language they see fit to make their point - which might simply be that society / humanity has a history of being pretty bloody shit. If you think what they're saying, behind the language, is racist / ableist / otherwise unacceptable, history will judge them accordingly, and a modern author can (and should) certainly be held accountable for those views.

@BoredZelda

Does your desire for 'truth in literature' extend to every single detail? Or is it just the racist terminology you're invested in seeing preserved?

I'd want accuracy across the board. I'm not sure why people wouldn't.

Because reading it would be too difficult. Depending on when and where it was set, a historical novel might require you to read a dialect of a language so archaic it's not comprehensible at all to users of, say, modern English -- Hilary Mantel's Cromwell novels would have dialogue slipping in and out of Tudor English, Latin, and various European languages, to mention only one obvious form of 'accuracy'.