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Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Art of Law in Shakespeare by Paul Raffield
Through an examination of five plays by Shakespeare Paul Raffield analyses the contiguous development of common law and poetic drama during the first decade of Jacobean rule. The broad premise of The Art of Law in Shakespeare is that the ‘artificial reason’ of law was a complex art form that shared the same rhetorical strategy as the plays of Shakespeare. Each chapter investigates a particular aspect of the common law seen through the lens of a specific play by Shakespeare. Topics include the unprecedented significance of rhetorical skills to the practice and learning of common law (iLove’s Labour’s Lost/i); the early modern treason trial as exemplar of the theatre of law (iMacbeth/i); the art of law as the legitimate distillation of the law of nature (iThe Winter’s Tale/i); the efforts of common lawyers to create an image of nationhood from both classical and Judeo-Christian mythography (iCymbeline/i); and the theatrical device of the island as microcosm of the Jacobean state and the project of imperial expansion (iThe Tempest/i). It is essential reading for scholars of law and literature as well as those with an interest in Shakespeare.