Boundaries and Desire: Censorship and the Articulation of Romantic Encounters in the Works of Radclyffe Hall

Abstract

Radclyffe Hall suscitated vigorous antagonistic reactions among her contemporaries, readers and critics alike, through her rendering of same-sex romantic encounters, which often provoked heated disputes on the literary stage and in society at large, ultimately leading to obscenity charges materialised in the banning of the books under investigation. This article focuses on the articulation of love and desire between women in the works that this author wrote and/or published in the 1920s, pointing to the narrative manifestation of self-censorship, as well as to the workings of external censorship and to the effects of these personally inflicted and socially imposed boundaries.