William Shakespeare is inextricably linked with the law. Legal documents make up most of the records we have of his life, and trials, lawsuits, and legal terms permeate his plays. Gathering an extraordinary team of literary and legal scholars, philosophers, and even sitting judges, "Shakespeare and the Law" demonstrates that Shakespeare's thinking about legal concepts and legal practice points to a deep and sometimes vexed engagement with the law's technical workings, its underlying premises, and its social effects".Shakespeare and the Law" opens with three essays that provide useful frameworks for approaching the topic, offering perspectives on law and literature that emphasize both the continuities and contrasts between the two fields. In its second section, the book considers Shakespeare's awareness of common law thinking and common law practice through examinations of "Measure for Measure" and "Othello". Building and expanding on this question, the third part inquires into Shakespeare's general attitudes toward legal systems. A judge and a former solicitor general rule on Shylock's demand for enforcement of his odd contract; and two essays by literary scholars take contrasting views on whether Shakespeare could imagine a functioning legal system. The fourth section looks at how law enters into conversation with issues of politics and community, both in the plays and in our own world. The volume concludes with a freewheeling colloquy among Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, Judge Richard Posner, Martha C. Nussbaum, and Richard Strier that covers everything from the ghost in "Hamlet" to the nature of judicial discretion. Celebrating the sometimes fractious intellectual energy produced by scholars and practitioners tackling the question of Shakespeare and the law, this collection is a resource and provocation for further thinking and ongoing discussion.
About the Author
Bradin Cormack is professor of English and director of the Nicholson Center for British Studies.
Martha C. Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor in the Law School, the Department of Philosophy, and the Divinity School.
Richard Strier is the Frank L. Sulzberger Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of English and in the College, all at the University of Chicago.
Reviews
"'Shakespeare and the Law' is true to its word. This collection is filled with captivating and often convincing claims about not just the brooding omnipresence but also the moral necessity of law to Shakespeare's characters, their fate, and the quality of justice depicted and dispensed in the plays, as well as in Shakespeare's own life and in our own world. The essays provide an education, while the transcribed conversation that closes the volume, with a guest appearance by Justice Stephen Breyer, is an illuminating and delightful denouement" – Robin West, Georgetown University
"This splendid collection of essays embraces dramaturgical, legal-historical, legal-philosophical, and formal and linguistic approaches to the question of Shakespeare and the law. Although the Shakespeare we meet here is suspicious of the law's formalisms, a world without law is no utopia in his plays. Instead Shakespeare seeks out and celebrates the forms of equity that might qualify and contextualize the letter of the law in order to explore the forms of civility and fellowship through which human beings resolve conflicts and build worlds. Funny, informative, fast-moving, and smart, this book is both a pleasure to read and a resource to savor and share" – Julia Reinhard Lupton, author of "Thinking with Shakespeare"
"The main title of this excellent volume – 'Shakespeare and the Law' – is too modest. The subtitle – 'A Conversation among Disciplines and Professions' – is more accurate. A collection of brilliant conversationalists, taking law and literature as baseline frames of reference, explores the intersections of literary texts, jurisprudential conundrums, problems in the philosophy of language, the imperatives of morality, the abyss of history, the perils of statecraft, the legitimacy of authority, and the deep waters of race and gender. Always, however, the conversation returns to works of literature, with even the lawyers and judges acknowledging that the pleasures of the text exceed the (considerable) pleasures of analysis. Riches abound, but I must single out Martha Nussbaum's weaving together of Julius Caesar (both historical person and character), Gandhi's India, George Washington's self-presentation, and the lessons imparted to her by her father on the way to a startling but inevitable and earned conclusion: 'Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar' is a misleading, even a dangerous work'" – Stanley Fish
