Equity Stirring

Gary Watt is a Professor of Law at the University of Warwick, and one of the General Editors of Law and Humanities. He was named UK 'Law Teacher of the Year' 2009.

• 1 Excursion Equitable Reading The Constancy of Remedial Equity The 'Science' Fiction of Law The Cultural Story of other Countries and other Worlds Law, Humanities and the Humane The Character of Equity Multiple Meanings of Equity Education 2 In Chancery Equity Captured in Chancery The Earl of Oxford's Case In Fashion: Equity and the Problem of Precedent The New Life of Equity 3 Chancery Script The Future of Chancery Language in English Law Bending without Breaking Chancery Language Maxims Chancery Doctrine Equitable Remedies Equitable Property Trust The Historical Development of the Trust The Metaphysical Appeal of the Trust Constructive Trust Public Example and Private Equity Mortgage Conclusion 4 Figuring Equity General Law as Abstract Fiction The Reductive Nature of Legal Abstraction The Merit of Metaphor Metaphor as Equitable Doctrine - the Example of Resulting Trust Metaphors of Equity Architectural Metaphors: Level Ground, Right Angles and the Leaden Rule The River of Justice The Scales The Personification of Equity 5 The Equity of Esther Summerson Esther and Summerson The Fractured Canon and the Equity of the Book of Common Prayer The Stereotype of Female Equity Motive Moderation Domestic Goddess The Close of Esther's Narrative 6 Shakespeare's Equity Shakespeare's Legal Language Shakespeare and the 'Equity'Word Falstaff and Equity - a Reinterpretation Equity Stirring To Catch and Keep the Conscience of the King The Merchant of Venice Measure for Measure Shakespeare's Impartiality 7 Pretence of Equity Outlaw Equity House and Homecoming Pretence of Equity The Future The Limit

Equity Stirring is a quirky and engaging book. Its quirkiness arises in part from the way it straddles two audiences and two disciplines: lawyers and literary scholars, law and literature. The book contains a great wealth and variety of insight and scholarship...the sense of engagement comes from the book's steadfast and spirited defense of equity as a public virtue inside and outside the law. ...this is an important, compendious, and thought-provoking work that should be on the shelves of everyone interested in equity studies. Mark Fortier Law and Literature Spring 2011 This beautiful book, deeply learned in the branch of jurisprudence we call equity and deeply engaged with the western literary tradition, gives new life to equity in the legal sense by connecting it with equity in the larger sense: as it is defined both in ordinary language and experience and by great writers, especially Dickens and Shakespeare. Equity Stirring transforms our sense of what equity is and can be and demonstrates in a new and graceful way the importance of connecting law with other arts of mind and language. James Boyd White, author of Living Speech: Resisting the Empire of Force 'Equity Stirring' is a fine example of interdisciplinary legal scholarship at its best. Watt has managed to produce a book that is fresh and innovative, and thoroughly accessible. Deploying a range of familiar, and not so familiar, texts from across the humanities, Watt has presented a fascinating historical and literary commentary on the evolution of modern ideas of justice and equity. Ian Ward, Professor of Law at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. This book is intended to reach the law and literature community and deserves the warm praise it has received for its 'deep learning' and 'fresh approach'. Equity Stirring is fascinating as a twenty-first century lawyer's perspective on the application of Shakespeare, utilising the works to provides 'common ground' for exploring a radical legal thesis. Shakespeare is not deployed as a brand to assist with marketing, but is invoked as a means of shaping legal pedagogy and communicating new legal analysis within an engaging and familiar framework. Valuable to anyone interested in the early modern period, the legal language of drama or Shakespeare's relationship with the law. Cover to cover reading will reward those concerned with the enduring themes of justice and mercy. John Curtis Cahiers Elisabethains Autumn 2009