Poets and Lawyers: Birds of a Feather
Huffington Post, December 2015
14 Pages Posted: 9 Jan 2016
Date Written: December 15, 2015
Abstract
Starting with the example of the American lawyer-poet Wallace Stevens, this article explores the natural affinity between lawyers and poets. As the article points out: (1) good lawyers, like good poets, wrestle with world and word; (2) good lawyers, like good poets, fuse theory and practice in a craft of language; (3) good lawyers, like good poets, appreciate the power of form and its role in ethos, logos, and pathos; (4) good lawyers, like good poets, appreciate the role and power of framing in what they do, and (5) good lawyers, like good poets, appreciate the power and role of narrative in what they do. The article also discusses the parallels between legal forms such as IRAC (Issue, Rule, Application, Conclusion) and the Shakespearean Sonnet and parallels between ironic argument and the Italian sonnet form.
Keywords: Law and Poetry, Wallace Stevens, Shakespeare, Sonnet, IRAC, Form, Narrative, Ballade, Villanelle, Acrostic, Sestina, Translation
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