Bradin Cormack is professor of English and director of the Nicholson Center for British Studies; Martha C. Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor in the Law School, the Department of Philosophy, and the Divinity School; and Richard Strier is the Frank L. Sulzberger Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of English and in the College, all at the University of Chicago.
"Shakespeare and the Law is true to its word. This
collection is filled with captivating and often convincing claims
about not just the brooding omnipresence but also the moral
necessity of law to Shakespeare's characters, their fate, and the
quality of justice depicted and dispensed in the plays, as well as
in Shakespeare's own life and in our own world. The essays provide
an education, while the transcribed conversation that closes the
volume, with a guest appearance by Justice Stephen Breyer, is an
illuminating and delightful denouement."
--Robin West, Georgetown University
"The main title of this excellent volume--Shakespeare and the
Law--is too modest. The subtitle--A Conversation among
Disciplines and Professions--is more accurate. A collection of
brilliant conversationalists, taking law and literature as baseline
frames of reference, explores the intersections of literary texts,
jurisprudential conundrums, problems in the philosophy of language,
the imperatives of morality, the abyss of history, the perils of
statecraft, the legitimacy of authority, and the deep waters of
race and gender. Always, however, the conversation returns to works
of literature, with even the lawyers and judges acknowledging that
the pleasures of the text exceed the (considerable) pleasures of
analysis. Riches abound, but I must single out Martha Nussbaum's
weaving together of Julius Caesar (both historical person and
character), Gandhi's India, George Washington's self-presentation,
and the lessons imparted to her by her father on the way to a
startling but inevitable and earned conclusion: 'Shakespeare's
Julius Caesar is a misleading, even a dangerous work.'"--
"Stanley Fish"
"This splendid collection of essays embraces dramaturgical,
legal-historical, legal-philosophical, and formal and linguistic
approaches to the question of Shakespeare and the law. Although the
Shakespeare we meet here is suspicious of the law's formalisms, a
world without law is no utopia in his plays. Instead Shakespeare
seeks out and celebrates the forms of equity that might qualify and
contextualize the letter of the law in order to explore the forms
of civility and fellowship through which human beings resolve
conflicts and build worlds. Funny, informative, fast-moving, and
smart, this book is both a pleasure to read and a resource to savor
and share."
--Julia Reinhard Lupton, author of Thinking with Shakespeare
"A kaleidoscopic feature of the book that emerges . . . is a
natural result of the rich and varied interpretations of the
thinkers', professors', judges', and experts' different
institutional and disciplinary considerations."
-- "Sixteenth Century Journal"
"Offers insights into Shakespeare, culture, and law. The
contributors are experts in their fields; they speak with authority
when need be and with humor when called for."
-- "Federal Lawyer"
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