Literary Acts of Agency

At a time when the rule of law is being reshaped and even severely distorted, this volume examines how literature both legitimises the principles underlying the present rule of law and foreshadows assumptions that take shape before legal claims are publicly felt or articulated in legal discourse. Literary acts of agency thus reconfigure the legal sphere via arguments formulated through an aesthetic, yet related, social and cultural praxis. Rather than viewing literature as a vessel of a ruling ideology or a moral signpost for future legal practices, this volume examines how it tests the interval between the legality and legitimacy of law.