Description
Book SynopsisLaw and Literature: The Irish Case is a collection of fascinating essays by literary and legal scholars which explore the intersections between law and literature in Ireland from the eighteenth century to the present day. Sharing a concern for the cultural life of law and the legal life of culture, the contributors shine a light on the ways in which the legal and the literary have spoken to each other, of each other, and, at times, for each other, on the island of Ireland in the last three centuries. Several of the chapters discuss how texts and writers have found their ways into the law’s chambers and contributed to the development of jurisprudence. The essays in the collection also reveal the juridical and jurisprudential forces that have shaped the production and reception of Irish literary culture, revealing the law’s popular reception and its extra-legal afterlives.
List of contributors: Rebecca Anne Barr, Max Barrett, Noreen Doody, Katherine Ebury, Adam Gearey, Tom Hickey, James Kelly, Colum Kenny, David Kenny, Heather Laird, Julie Morrissy, Gearóid O'Flaherty, Virginie Roche-Tiengo, Barry Sheils.
Table of ContentsProem: ‘Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act, 2013’
Julie MorrissyIntroduction: Law and Literature / The Irish Case
Adam Hanna and Eugene McNultyOpening Argument: Interpretation in Law and Literature
Tom Hickey and David KennyPart I: Alternative Jurisdictions1. Saying Unsaid: Law Transformed in Annemarie Ní Churreáin’s
Bloodroot (2017)
Adam Gearey2. Laughter Before the Law: Censorship, Caricature and Hunger Strike in Modern Irish Literature and Art
Barry Sheils3. Citizenship and Connection in Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s
Clasp (2015)
Adam Hanna 4. Writing Law(lessness): Legal Pluralism and Narrative Structure in Emily Lawless’s
Hurrish (1886).
Heather LairdPart II: The Writer in Court5. Imagination versus the Law: Oscar Wilde
Noreen Doody6.
Fiat Justitia Ruat Caelum - Revisiting the Wildes on Trial
Gearóid O’Flaherty 7. World War II Treason Trials and the Legacy of Irish Rebellion in Rebecca West’s
The Meaning of Treason (1948)
Katherine Ebury8. Legible Letters: The Cases of Patrick Pearse and the ‘English’ Alphabet
Colum KennyPart III: The Court in Writing9. Through a Legal Looking-Glass: Maria Edgeworth’s
Castle Rackrent (1800) and the Law
Max Barrett10. Rape Narratives, Women’s Testimony, and Irish Law in
Asking for It and
Dark ChapterRebecca Anne Barr 11. ‘Pleading My Cause’: Literature and the Law in Irish Romanticism
James Kelly12. The Judge and The Human Hansard in Brian Friel’s Theatre
Virginie Roche-Tiengo13. Moral Legibility: Dion Boucicault and the Melodramatic Legal Scene
Eugene Mc Nulty
