Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 September 2009
Summary
I want this book to be enjoyable to read. It certainly has been to write. All too often, as Kafka observed in his diaries and from his own experiences as a law student, learning ‘the’ law is like eating sawdust. The law grinds down its supplicants. That, educatively and politically, is its ambition. To lawyers like myself, in general, and certainly too often, there seems precious little fun in the law, or in learning about it. Literature, on the other hand, can be fun. It hopes to please. That is its particular ambition. One of the themes of this book is that an appreciation of literature can better educate lawyers and, indeed, non-lawyers, precisely because it is fresh and enjoyable, whilst at the same time it is capable of broadening the learning experience. I will discuss the various ambitions of law and literature, particularly the educative ambition, in chapter i, but certainly from my experience, and from that of other law and literature teachers, the introduction of literature into the law school classroom is a positive and popular measure. Law need not be like sawdust. It need not be anything like as complex, inaccessible or downright dull as it so often seems. Its study might be enjoyable.
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- Information
- Law and LiteraturePossibilities and Perspectives, pp. ix - xiiPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995