Poetic Justice and Legal Fictions PDF
Preview Poetic Justice and Legal Fictions
POETIC JUSTICE AND LEGAL FICTIONS Literature reveals the intense efforts of moral imagination required to articulate what justice is and how it might be satisfied. Examin- ingawidevarietyoftexts,includingShakespeare’splays,Gilbertand Sullivan’soperas,andmodernistpoetics,PoeticJusticeandLegalFic- tions explores how literary laws and values illuminate and challenge the jurisdiction of justice and the law. Jonathan Kertzer examines howjusticeisarticulatedbyitscommandof,orsubmissionto,time, nature, singularity, truth, transcendence, and sacrifice, marking the distancebetweenthepromiseofjusticetosatisfyourmoralandsocia- bleneedsanditsfailuretodoso.PoeticJusticeandLegalFictionswill be invaluable reading for scholars of the law within literature and amongmodernistandtwentieth-centuryliteraturespecialists. jonathan kertzer is Professor of English at the University of Calgary. His previous publications include Poetic Argument: Stud- ies in Modern Poetry (1989), “That House in Manawaka”: Margaret Laurence’s “A Bird in the House” (1992), and Worrying the Nation: ImaginingaNationalLiteratureinEnglishCanada(1998). POETIC JUSTICE AND LEGAL FICTIONS JONATHAN KERTZER cambridge university press Cambridge,NewYork,Melbourne,Madrid,CapeTown,Singapore,Sa˜oPaulo,Delhi,Dubai,Tokyo CambridgeUniversityPress TheEdinburghBuilding,Cambridgecb28ru,UK PublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabyCambridgeUniversityPress,NewYork www.cambridge.org Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9780521196451 (cid:2)c JonathanKertzer2010 Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements, noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. Firstpublished2010 PrintedintheUnitedKingdomattheUniversityPress,Cambridge AcatalogrecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData Kertzer,Jonathan,1946– Poeticjusticeandlegalfictions:studiesinliteraryjustice/JonathanKertzer. p. cm. Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. isbn978-0-521-19645-1(hardback) 1.Justiceinliterature. 2.Lawandliterature. 3.Legalstories–Historyandcriticism. 4.Justice(Philosophy) I.Title. pn56.j87k47 2010 809(cid:3).933553–dc22 2009046421 isbn978-0-521-19645-1Hardback CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceor accuracyofURLsforexternalorthird-partyInternetwebsitesreferredto inthispublication,anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuch websitesis,orwillremain,accurateorappropriate. Dedicated inlovingmemoryofmyparents SamuelandMiriamKertzer ∗∗∗ AndasalwaysforAdrienne thirtyyears Contents Acknowledgements pageviii 1 Lemotjuste 1 2 Lifeplusninety-nineyears:thefantasyoflegalfictions 24 3 Time’sdesire:thetemporalityofjustice 49 4 Onetouchofnature:literatureandnaturallaw 71 5 Thecourseofaparticular:justiceandsingularity 91 6 Truth,justice,andthepathosofunderstanding 118 7 Conclusion:legalfictions 138 Notes 146 Bibliography 157 Index 167 vii Acknowledgements EarlierversionsofchaptersappearedinMosaic,EnglishStudiesinCanada, Twentieth-CenturyLiterature,andLaw,Culture,andtheHumanities. My thanks to Lee Zimmerman of Twentieth-Century Literature for his encouragementandsupport. MythankstoNancyChillagandRodrigoDuranforpermissiontouse thecoverphotographofMr.Duran’swonderfulstatueLadyofJustice. My thanks to Cambridge University Press, especially to Sarah Roberts andtoFionaLittleforherscrupulousworkinediting. viii chapter 1 Le mot juste injusticeiseveryvirtuecomprehended (Aristotle,NicomacheanEthics108) justice:Neverworryaboutit law(the):Nobodyknowswhatitis written:“Wellwritten”:ahall-porter’sencomium,appliedtothenewspaper serialhefindsentertaining (GustaveFlaubert,TheDictionaryofAcceptedIdeas55,58,91) Flaubert’smockeryofbourgeoisindifferencetojusticeandlegalitycontrasts hisowndevotiontojusticeasthesupremeliteraryvalue,thevirtueinwhich all others are comprehended. The just word – le mot juste – is a phrase expressinghisidealoflinguisticprecisionassociatedwithpainstakingcraft seeking exactly the right word to express exactly the right idea to convey exactlytherightimpressiontohisreaders.Writingwell,heclaimed,ismore than a matter of verbal felicity, although felicity is its reward. “[T]o write well is everything,” a writer’s first duty, he told George Sand (Flaubert, Letters 2.231), but it is not an end in itself. Although he once proposed writing a book “about nothing, a book dependent on nothing external, whichwouldbeheldtogetherbytheinternalstrengthofitsstyle”(1.154), his letters reveal that he was not satisfied with style for its own sake. It should be an avenue to illumination and “exaltation” (2.80). The wrong word is an affront not just to harmony, but to clear-sightedness and clear thinking. ForthemomentathingisTrue,itisgood...WhenIcomeuponabadassonance orarepetitioninoneofmysentences,I’msureI’mflounderingintheFalse.By dint of searching, I find the proper expression, which was always the only one, andwhichis,atthesametime,harmonious.Thewordisneverlackingwhenone possessestheidea.(2.231) The right word appears when the idea is true, but only the right word will express its truth. Le mot is juste when it contributes to a justice of 1
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