Selecting the Memory, Controlling the Myth: The Propaganda of Legal Foundations in Early Modern Drama

Abstract

Political mythology is always a reconstruction of historical memory. That process becomes crucial at times of systemic political and legal re-constitution. We witness such a political moment in Western Europe in the late 16th and 17th centuries with the emergence of political modernity and the nation state. It is no accident that, in those years, theatre becomes a dominant art form, in which historical memory becomes ritually re-enacted to crystallise the political and social myths which will furnish European legal regimes with value systems. The Shakespearean Henry IV: Part One and The Tempest, along with Jean Racine’s Andromaque, are examined as evidence for that transformation from memory into myth, and history into normativity.

Keywords: comparative law, comparative literature, law & literature, law & memory, law & Shakespeare, legal history, legal theory