A critical introduction to law and literature
"Despite their apparent separation, law and literature have been closely linked fields throughout history. Linguistic creativity is central to the law, with literary modes such as narrative and metaphor infiltrating legal texts. Equally, legal norms of good and bad conduct, of identity and human responsibility, are reflected or subverted in literature's engagement with questions of law and justice. Law seeks to regulate creative expression, while literary texts critique and sometimes openly resist the law. Kieran Dolin introduces this interdisciplinary field, focusing on the many ways that law and literature have addressed and engaged with each other. He charts the history of the shifting relations between the two disciplines, from the open affiliation between literature and law in the sixteenth-century Inns of Court to the less visible links of contemporary culture. Each chapter is organized around close analysis of a famous trial or literary-legal encounter. The wide resonance of such trials illuminates the cultural centrality of law, and the social responsiveness of literature."--Jacket
viii, 263 pages ; 24 cm
9780521807432, 9780511272714, 9780511273506, 0521807433, 0511272715, 0511273509
76935896
pt. 1. Eminent domains: the text of the law and the law of the text . Law's language. Literature under the law
pt. 2. Law and literature in history. Renaissance humanism and the new culture of contract . Crime and punishment in the eighteenth century. The woman question in Victorian England. The common law and the ache of modernism. Rumpole in Africa: law and literature in post-colonial society. Race and representation in contemporary America