1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910460504103321

Titolo

Taking exception to the law : materializing injustice in early modern English literature / / edited by Donald Beecher, [and three others]

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Toronto, [Ontario] ; ; Buffalo, [New York] ; ; London, [England] : , : University of Toronto Press, , 2015

©2015

ISBN

1-4426-9022-4

1-4426-1685-7

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (288 p.)

Disciplina

820.9/3554

Soggetti

English literature - Early modern, 1500-1700 - History and criticism

Law and literature - England - History - 16th century

Law and literature - England - History - 17th century

Law in literature

Justice in literature

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Law and the Production of Literature: An Introductory Perspective / Williams, Grant -- 2. Paper Justice, Parchment Justice: Shakespeare, Hamlet, and the Life of Legal Documents / Cormack, Bradin -- 3. Conditional Promises and Legal Instruments in The Merchant of Venice / Stretton, Tim -- 4. The "Snared Subject" and the General Pardon Statute in Late Elizabethan Coterie Literature / Lee Strain, Virginia -- 5. The Prison Diaries of Archbishop Laud / Shuger, Debora -- 6. Criminal Biography in Early Modern News Pamphlets / Stymeist, David -- 7. Two-Sided Legal Narratives: Slander, Evidence, Proof, and Turnarounds in Much Ado About Nothing / Kreps, Barbara -- 8. No Boy Left Behind: Education and Distributive Justice in Early Modern England / Hanson, Elizabeth -- 9. Warding off Injustice in Book Five of The Faerie Queene / Owens, Judith -- 10. Torture and the Tyrant's Injustice from Foxe to King Lear / Staines, John D. -- 11. The Literatures of Toleration and



Civil Religion in Post-Revolutionary England / Visconsi, Elliott -- 12. Obnoxious Satan: Milton, Neo-Roman Justice, and the Burden of Grace / Stevens, Paul -- Contributors -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Taking Exception to the Law explores how a range of early modern English writings responded to injustices perpetrated by legal procedures, discourses, and institutions. From canonical poems and plays to crime pamphlets and educational treatises, the essays engage with the relevance and wide appeal of legal questions in order to understand how literature operated in the early modern period.Justice in its many forms - legal, poetic, divine, natural, and customary - is examined through insightful and innovative analyses of a number of texts, including The Merchant of Venice, The Faerie Queene, and Paradise Lost. A major contribution to the growing field of law and literature, this collection offers cultural contexts, interpretive insights, and formal implications for the entire field of English Renaissance culture.