Law in Art (American University Studies Series Xxiv, American Literature)

In Law in Art Susan Weiner explores Melville's major fictions as imaginative responses to crucial conflicts within nineteenth-century American law. Of paramount importance were the transition to a marketplace economy, the problem of slavery, and the conflict between morality and the law. Drawing upon the insights of the Critical Legal Studies movement as well as those of the New Historians, Weiner examines the suppositions of legal reasoning and discusses the extent to which literary discourse offers a challenge to legal discourse. In so doing she argues that literature can play a dynamic role in bringing law closer to justice.