Synopses & Reviews
'Unique aspects of American pre-Civil war culture and politics are revealed through a legal/literary analysis of \\[I\\]The Pioneers, The House of the Seven Gables, Uncle Tom\'s Cabin\\[/I\\] and a number of Melville\'s works.'
Synopsis
In Cross Examinations of Law and Literature Brook Thomas uses legal thought and legal practice as a lens through which to read some of the important fictions of antebellum America. The lens reflects both ways, and we learn as much about the literature in the context of contemporary legal concerns as we do about the legal ideologies that the fiction subverts or reveals. Successive chapters deal with Cooper's Pioneers and Hawthorne's The House of Seven Gables (property law and the image of the judiciary), Melville's Benito Cereno and Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (slavery), Melville's White Jacket, Pierre and Bartleby (worker exploitation or wage slavery), The Confidence-Man (contracts), and finally, Billy Budd, which examines a number of issues illustrative of the triumph of legal formalism after the Civil War.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments; List of abbreviations; An opening statement; Part I. Individuals, Judges, Property: Part II. Wage and Chattel Slavery: Part III. Billy Budd and Re-Righting Legal History: A closing statement; notes; Index.