Modern vs Past Writers Facing Fierce Criticism

What we have in common with writers like Chaucer, Shelley and Twain is having to deal with critics

Writing a book is hard. It takes a lot of time, even more energy and yet more courage to actually publish it.

Because on the other side of that publish button, lies a whole jungle filled with tigers. Hungry tigers, bored tigers, misunderstanding tigers and some constructive tigers, but also crazy, hungry-for-blood tigers who will pounce no matter what you write.

Writing in the modern world is a whole different beast from when the likes of GeoffreyChaucer, Mary Shelley and even Mark Twain wrote.

These names were the first to come to me when I started my first draft of this essay having a BA in English lit, and when I started to research I was astonished to find their experiences aligned with the piece I had in mind. From this I can only imagine how many writers suffered at the hands of criticism or even who thrived on it. But one thing is certain: one you write, criticism you invite. (Mine, all mine! Proud of that one!)

So let’s start with Chaucer’s time, the fourteenth century, when there were no newspaper critics as there was no printing press yet. His work had to be completely copied by hand. So the only way his work was reviewed and criticised was through mouth-to-mouth, within the letters people sent one other – of which some survive – and as a reference in other works, which shows the popularity of the works at the time.

In these circumstances Chaucer would surely know about people’s opinions of his rather bawdy storytelling, but it would not come close to the scrutiny Mary Shelley was under when she wrote Frankenstein.

Shelley was an unknown writer when she wrote Frankenstein. – I know. Damn… Quite the debut. – She was known in intellectual circles for her writer parents and for being the – underage – lover of Percy Bysshe Shelley, the erratic poet with a penchant for scandal.

Infamously, she wrote Frankenstein in the dark summer of 1816 on a dare between her, her husband and their friend Lord Byron – speaking of erratic and scandalous poets – at Lake Geneva when the Swiss skies were darkened from a volcanic eruption on Sumatra a year before.

Shelley wrote her story in a time when critics were in themselves famous and often writers themselves. But as a woman, she first published her story anonymously. Being a gothic horror, it would be another scandal if the public found out a female wrote it – oh, the horror!

Regardless, the public loved it.

Yet, thirteen years later, Mary Shelley decided to publish an edited version. Dr Frankenstein went from having free will to being destined to a life of deep suffering. Why did she make this change?

One reason was that a lot of life happened in those in between years. Percy had drowned and she lost three of her four children in infancy. Such tragedies are bound to drastically alter your outlook on life and it did just that with Mary Shelley. Where she had before left Victor at the mercy of his own choices, she went to a pessimistic view where Victor was always going down with his creature.

But it wasn’t her lived experience alone that made her change the novel. She also changed it because of the fierce criticism she received for it. By then it was known she was the author and the outrage was enormous.

Needing to become financially independent from her father-in-law – go Mary! – and needing her reputation spruced up, Shelley changed some language that some critics felt were too vulgar and radical, and she added a morality to the story that previously was absent.

For example, there is an incestuous subplot in the early edition. For the 1831 edition, the niece is swapped for an adopted orphan.

So Mary Shelley caved and wrote a new novel partly based on what her critics said. She lived in a time where a woman – and one with a scandalous life at that – writing a gothic horror would be considered an abomination if not a sin. Much like the create himself. To save her reputation and herself, she made the changes – some of – the public wanted. The critics, and her life, made the need to actually change her original work to appeal more paramount. The critics impacted an actual work of fiction – a Gothic horror no less – in a way we can barely imagine today. Ultimately all because she was a woman.

Times were different for Mark Twain. He revelled in the controversy he caused. And he caused quite a few with his writing. He never stepped away from the moral questions that arise when you read Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer. He wanted the debate, he wanted the heated exchange of views.

But even Twain knew sometimes he went too far. He always let his wife Olivia proofread and edit his work first in part so she could soften some of the sharpness in his language.

However even she knew her husband could write a good story and that his critics only spurred him on. I found this telling excerpt in the National Review that sums up exactly how Twain handled his critics:

‘A few years before his death, Mark Twain wandered into a local library that refused to put The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn on its shelves on the grounds that it was damaging to schoolchildren. When Twain asked the librarian what was offensive about the book, he told him it was because, in the course of the story, Huck lies.

“Is there nothing else against him?” Twain asked, according to his 1907 retelling.

“No, I think not,” the librarian answered.

So Twain picked up another book. “I see several copies of this book lying around. Are the young forbidden to read it?” he asked.

“Of course not,” responded the librarian.

It was a copy of the Bible. Twain offered to write down a few of its passages demonstrating moral weakness and post them on the library’s wall. The librarian refused.

Even during his life, Twain showed contempt for the “pious” tastemakers who refused to carry his book, which featured the realistic expected behavior from Huck, the “neglected and untaught son of a town drunkard.”’

The piece goes on to discuss Twain having Huck Finn use an unacceptable word and how that sits with Twain’s use of social themes. Read it here.

But these case studies, from Chaucer to Shelley and Twain prove that in every age critics were around and that their words mattered to the writer. They were not oblivious to it, they were not cold-blooded about it and it definitely did affect them, though in different ways.

It’s easy to forget when another nasty troll hits our inbox or comment section that in fact every writer has had to deal with this over time.

The difference however is the scope. Today’s deluge of criticism cannot be measured against what these authors had to deal with. Mark Twain received death threats, but in times where railroads were the fastest way to get around they must have felt different to today where doxxing can have a life-threatening consequence.

And yet we write. Because our stories want to be written. Because they need to be written. Because a society thrives when different voices and experiences are shared and get to be understood.

But next time you receive a message from a troll remind yourself of this: you are not the first to get one, you won’t be the last, and you are not alone in facing this challenge that historically seems to be part of the writing life. Even the greatest among us had to find a way to cope with fierce criticism – and still write.

Considering the increased amount of criticism in the age of the internet, it is a simple fact that being a writer takes extra courage and energy in this day and age.

To realise this is to stand a little taller. Because despite this, we write. Despite the trash that gets poured from basement keyboards, we write. Alongside the knowledge of having both fans and bullies, we write and we continue to share our voice.

Because stories are vital.

Sources: No AI, but my own education and human-written online sources such as Wikipedia and literary websites to back ideas up.

Sandra Postma

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