The Envelope and the Letter: Reflections on Law’s Ambience
G. Hofmann (ed.), Figures of Law: Studies in the Interference of Law and Literature (Tübingen, A. Francke Verlag, 2007), pp. 77–100
24 Pages Posted: 19 Sep 2012 Last revised: 25 Sep 2012
Date Written: 2007
Abstract
A clear distinction is usually made between two branches of law-literature scholarship – the “law-in-literature” branch and the “law-as-literature” branch. Law-in-literature looks to literary works for assistance in analysing aspects of law and legal systems as well as concepts of justice generally. Law-as-literature has two subdivisions: the application of literary theories to the law and methods of legal reasoning and the study of rhetoric in the context of legal writing. Writing in the law-literature field therefore contains work on very disparate areas of law, legal theory, literature and literary theory. This essay first discusses the law-in-literature branch of this scholarship, after which the law-as-literature approach is considered.
Keywords: law and literature, law-in-literature, law-as-literature
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