Shakespeare and the Law by Watt, Gary;

Series: Oxford Shakespeare Topics;

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23 887 Ft

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Product details:

Publisher OUP Oxford
Date of Publication 24 October 2024

ISBN 9780198877066
Binding Hardback
No. of pages208 pages
Size 210x142x20 mm
Weight 358 g
Language English

Short description:

Shakespeare and the Law argues that Shakespeare was not primarily concerned with the technical accuracy of law, but with its capacity to generate drama through dispute and playing with rules.

Long description:

Shakespeare and the Law appreciates Shakespeare and his works as expressions of an English early modern culture in which the shared rhetorical practices of dramatists and lawyers were informed by the renaissance of classical practice. It argues that Shakespeare was not primarily concerned with the technical accuracy of law, legal ideas, and legal performances, but with their capacity to generate dramatic interest through dispute, trial, the breaking of bonds, and the bending of rules. It follows that all Shakespeare's plays are in a sense ?law plays?. Rhetorical practices can emerge as performances of power, but in Shakespeare's works they show more as instances of the human instinct to challenge power by playing with rules. Shakespeare employs the special magic of legal language, actions, and materials to conjure playgoers to act as a critical jury to events transacted on stage. This calls for close attention to Shakespeare's poetic sound effects and the ways they prompt audiences to confer a fair hearing.

Large sections of the book offer an outstanding introduction to the field. Crisp accounts are provided of topics as diffuse as: John Shakespeare's legal troubles, sumptuary laws, speech acts, the position of Lord Chief Justice, mooting, the Inns of Court and Inns of Chancery, consistory courts, the neck-verse, Shakespeare's will, and much more besides.