The Importance of Law to Literature
The vital reasons using literature as a lens to interpret law is threefold: (1) law and literature have a historic connection. (2) literature can improve our understanding of law in terms of understanding the nuances of language and metaphor. Regarding analysis and the subtleties of language, eminent literary critic Harold Bloom wrote that in order to having compelling thought whether individually or in a type of Jungian collective conscious, one must utilize memory.[1] Thereafter, the question becomes, what should one commit to memory.[2] To answer, Bloom suggested “[c]ognition cannot proceed without memory, and the Canon is the true art of memory, the authentic foundation for cultural thinking.”[3] Here, Bloom refers to the literary Canon from Shakespeare,[4] but also to a lesser extent Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, and Wittgenstein.[5] (3) Literature can improve our practical understanding of law itself. Regarding literature’s specific application to law, American legal philosopher and scholar takes to heart the value of the aesthetic written text to explains how law is like literature: “I propose that we can improve our understanding of law by comparing legal interpretation with interpretation in other fields of knowledge, particularly literature.“[6]
[1] This is one of the central themes in is works, but particularly in The Western Canon. Harold Bloom, The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages (Riverhead Books 1994).
[2] This question of memory and thinking comes up in a televised interview with Charlie Rose and Harold Bloom. The Charlie Rose Show: Interview with Harold Bloom (PBS television broadcast, Dec. 29, 1994).
[3] Harold Bloom, The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages 86 (Riverhead Books 1994)
[4] “Coming after Shakespeare, who wrote both the best prose and the best poetry in the Western tradition, is a complex destiny, since originality becomes peculiarly difficult in everything that matters most: representation of human beings, the role of memory in cognition, the range of metaphor in suggesting new possibilities for language.” Harold Bloom, The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages 30 (Riverhead Books 1994)
[5] “Yet intelligibility pragmatically transcends its lexicon, and we must remind ourselves that Shakespeare, who scarcely relies upon philosophy, is more central to Western culture than are Plato and Aristotle, Kant and Hegel, Heidegger and Wittgenstein.” Harold Bloom, The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages 31 (Riverhead Books 1994)
[6] Ronald Dworkin, A Matter of Principle 146 (1985).
