Literature and Legal Discourse: Equity and Ethics from Sterne to ConradThe intersection between law and literature is a developing area in literary studies. Existing work has argued that literature provides an imaginary forum in which legal ideals and practices may be tested. In Literature and Legal Discourse: Equity and Ethics from Sterne to Conrad Dieter Polloczek develops this idea by comparing the notion of equity, or ethics, in fiction with its legal equivalent. He shows how the novel, with its increasing social scope and formal sophistication, provided a means of transmitting, questioning and refining society's traditions, values and modes of self-questioning. Polloczek analyses the links between actual legal fictions like substituted judgements, notions of equity, literary tropes and the construction and representation of social bonds through sentiment, philanthropy and marginalisation. Pollozcek's study is both theoretical and historical, covering a period that extends from the eighteenth century to the modernist period, and texts from Sterne, Dickens, Bentham and Conrad. |
Contents
| 1 | |
legal and sentimental confinement in Sternes novels | 20 |
Bentham on the security and flexibility of legal rules | 72 |
the legacy of incarceration in Dickenss Bleak House | 124 |
the case and cause of solidarity in Conrads The Nigger of the Narcissus | 203 |
Other editions - View all
Literature and Legal Discourse: Equity and Ethics from Sterne to Conrad Dieter Polloczek No preview available - 1999 |
Literature and Legal Discourse: Equity and Ethics from Sterne to Conrad Dieter Paul Polloczek No preview available - 2009 |
Common terms and phrases
actions adjudication aporias articulate authority Bentham Blackstone Bleak House Cambridge causes Chancery characters Civil Death claims common law common-law theory complexity confinement Conrad context corruption crisis cultural curse defined Dickens Dickens's discourse distributive justice equitable justice Esther ethical subjects exchange expectations fact fictitious entities function guilt human Hume Ibid incarceration individual inheritance injustices institutionalized institutions isolation Jarndyce Jarndyce and Jarndyce judge judge's judicial Krook's Lady Dedlock law's legacy legal fictions legal positivism legal system legislative liability literary literary fiction literature Lord Chancellor manipulation means metaphorical death moral narrative natural norms notion novel P. S. Atiyah perspectives philanthropic Pickwick Papers political positive law principle problem promise property transfer question reason reform relation resentment responsibility Richard ritual rules sense sentimental social solidarity Sterne Sterne's Substituted Judgment suffering suggests sympathy tion Toby Tristram Shandy trope University Press unnatural death utilitarian conscience utility Victorian Wait's Yorick