Reading the unconscious of the law: From psychoanalytical legal theory to early modern law and literature
Gruss S (2021)
Publication Type: Authored book
Publication year: 2021
Publisher: De Gruyter
ISBN: 9783110756456
DOI: 10.1515/9783110756456-002
Abstract
This article delineates psychoanalytical legal theory and stresses its underexplored potential within the law and literature paradigm in general, and for an analysis of early modern English law in particular. Using Jacques Derrida's legal writing and the 'mystical' origin of the authority of the law he proposes as a starting point, the article moves to French legal historian Pierre Legendre's psychoanalytical legal framework. Influenced by his training in La-canian psychoanalysis, Legendre positions the subject in an affective relationship to the Law (of the Father) which mirrors the self-fashioning of James I, for instance, as a pater patriae. The second prominent representative of psychoanalytical legal theory, British legal historian Peter Goodrich, introduced Legendre's body of work to an English-speaking audience and analyses the development of the English common law in the early modern age in terms of repression (of unrecognized strands of legal writing and thinking). This article argues that both of these theorists could be used fruitfully for an analysis of early modern law and literature and early modern drama, especially since their theories have not yet been fully explored within the field of law and literature.
Involved external institutions
Germany (DE)How to cite
APA:
Gruss, S. (2021). Reading the unconscious of the law: From psychoanalytical legal theory to early modern law and literature. De Gruyter.
MLA:
Gruss, Susanne. Reading the unconscious of the law: From psychoanalytical legal theory to early modern law and literature. De Gruyter, 2021.
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