Poethics, and other strategies of law and literature
A pioneer of the the new law and literature movement narrates its central vision, which he calls poethics: the revival of jurisprudence through literary sources and techniques. He argues that lawyers, like novelists, must use language that is precise in order to tell their stories persuasively.
Print Book, English, [1992], ©1992
Columbia University Press, New York, [1992], ©1992
Criticism, interpretation, etc
300 pages ; 24 cm
9780231074544, 0231074549
874812167
PrefaceAcknowledgmentsPaving the WayI. Poethics: Toward a Literary Jurisprudence1. Filling the void2. The Poetic Method for Law, or How the Law Means3. Narrative Aspects of Judicial Opinions4. Poetic Substance: The Poethics of Legal NarrativeLegalistic StorytellersII. Let's Not Kill All the Lawyers: Anglo-American Fiction's Equivocal Approach to the Lawyer FIgure5. The Literary Lawyer's Six Compelling Traits6. "I'll have no feelings here!": More on Mr. Jaggers7. Law's Oppression of the Feminine Other: Mr. Tulkinghorn v. Lady Dedlock8. John Barth's Todd Andrews: Inductive Reasoning, Relative Values9. Gavin Stevens' Quest for Silence: Faulkner's Developing Lawyer FigureIII. Christianity's Ends10. "Then you shall be his surety": Oaths and Mediating Breaches in The Merchant of Venice11. Accepting the Inside Narrator's Challenge: More on the Christ Figure in Billy Budd, SailorIV. The Self-Imploding Canon12. Law, Literature and the "Great Books"Legal Rhetoric, or the Stories Lawyers TellV. Lawtalk in France: The Challenge to Democracy13. Avoiding Central Realities: Narrative Terror and the Failure of French Culture Under the Occupation14. Legal Rhetoric Under Stress: The Example of VichyVI. Lawtalk in America15. Thoughts on Judge Richard Posner's Literary Performance16. From Jefferson to the Gulf War: How Lawyers Have Lost Their Golden Tongue17. Notes on Three Works by James Boyd WhiteNotes (1974) on The Legal ImaginationNotes (1987) on Heracles' BowNotes (1991) on Justice as TranslationConclusionNotesIndex