Introduction: Crime and Literature, Narrative and Doctrine

Abstract

This Introduction to a special issue of the Modern Criminal Law Review+ discusses the history of criminal law as a focus within the field of Law and Literature, from the early 20th century to the present, including bibliographies anthologies, and critical studies. Work in this area once focused primarily on the depiction of crime, criminals, and criminal trials in literary narratives (“law in literature”). Over the last thirty years, scholars have moved far beyond this focus, asking more foundational and conceptual questions, such as how literature can help us understand the epistemology and analysis of evidence, the structure of the trial, the development of doctrines and concepts such as attempt and mens rea, the changing treatment of crimes such as treason and conspiracy, and the representation of intention in forensic advocacy and judicial writing. What these investigations share is a concern with literary form and modes of representation, on the one hand, and structures of legal analysis, on the other. Instead of asking how crime and criminals are portrayed in imaginative works, scholars have inquired into the conditions that make these portrayals possible. This more foundational approach has been far more productive and continues to open up new avenues for research. After reviewing these developments, the introduction turns to the contributions in this special issue by Elise Wang, Hannah Walser, Anna Schur, Abhinav Sekhri, and Daria Bayer, discussing them in relation to this recent line of scholarship. All the contributions may be found on the MCLR+ site.

Keywords: law, literature, law and literature, legal history