Censorship in the Greek Tragedies’ adaptations for children.

Moula Evangelia, PHD in Children’s Literature, Greece.

The formation of the Literary Canon is supposed to have been based on the criteria of quality and supremacy of certain texts towards others. Today Canon is considered to have always underpinned the authoritative systems and to have supported the given social hierarchies. Classical texts have been canonized through their interpretive approaches in Education and their use as cornerstones of the western civilization. Their adaptations for children have always been popular worldwide. By giving emphasis to the “humanistic- romantic- ecumenical” principles of the Western society and by naturalizing them, they manage to mask the biases they are imbued with, and even to manipulate children’s thought in a latent way. Classical greek tragedies, part of the literary canon, have always been taught in education and performed by students’, but their adaptations reach broader children’s audience. Written “ad usum delphini” they have been censored - not to say bowdlerized- so as to conform with their implied innocent audience. By resorting to several techniques they expurgate the classical texts from their morally ambiguous points and turn them into pedagogically correct and didactic instruments.