MODERN LITERATURE AND ITS INFLUENCE IN THE DEVELOPMENT O

LEGAL PRINCIPLES

SUBMITTED BY

VICTORIA GONSALVES

“A”

2019-24

(19010323044)

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CONTENTS
Abstract.....................................................................................................................................4

Introduction..............................................................................................................................4

Research Methodology.............................................................................................................5

Literature Review.....................................................................................................................5

Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Stowe Harriet Breecher................................................................5

“The Feminist Companion to literature in English: women writers from the Middle
Ages to the present, Blaine.”........................................................................................6

Popular literature during civil war, Thomas Curator..................................................6

The Development of Feminism in English Literature, Martina Halířová..................6

The Legal Imagination, J.B. White.................................................................................6

The Civil War in American Culture, Will Kaufman....................................................7

The Civil War, as Will Kaufman watches, is an enviously protected social property.
Right now book of articles, he investigates the discussion that has seethed since
1865 on the war's significance. He contends that a significant social battle has
continued with respect to the idea of political authority during the contention, the
decision of military saints, the functions of memory, the complexities of sexual
orientation, and the noteworthiness of race. In doing as such, he expands upon
crafted by researchers in an assortment of fields..........................................................7

The Links Between Law and Literature, AP Shah.......................................................7

Analysis.....................................................................................................................................8

Historical Importance of modern literature......................................................................8

Modern Literature and the American civil war............................................................8

Modern literature and the feminist movement.............................................................9

Contemporary Issues And Literature..............................................................................10

Environment...................................................................................................................10

War..................................................................................................................................10

Governance.....................................................................................................................10

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 Racial Inequality............................................................................................................10

Law and Literature Movement.........................................................................................10

Conclusion...............................................................................................................................12

Works Cited............................................................................................................................13

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ABSTRACT
In this research paper the researcher will deal with how Modern literature has affected the
development of legal principles. The researcher has chosen this topic as law all over the
world has become complicated and difficult to understand. However, law in general should
be something a majority of people should understand. Modern Literature has been
instrumental in appealing the masses and making law as easy as possible. Be it TV shows like
suits or one of John Grisham’s thrillers literature in all forms helps the larger masses to
understand the law in one way or another. The paper commences with explaining modern
literature and how it came into existence. The researcher will further see how modern
literature has developed through the years. The researcher will give some examples of
situations where modern literature has affected the legal world in a meaningful way.

INTRODUCTION
In order to know what is modern literature one must first understand what literature. Unlike
other topics literature is a fluid concept. The Ramayana and Mahabharata are as much part of
literature as Tess off the D’Urbervilles or Jane Eyre. To define Literature, I would like to
quote the author of Animal Farm, George Orwell “One of the parameters to judge a is its
ability to survive over time and in competition with other works – not only works of literature
but also cultural products.” (Shah, 2017)

Literary modernism, or modernist literature, was developed in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries and is characterized primarily by a self-aware break from traditional ways of
writing, in poetry and prose fiction. Modern literature developed in Europe and north
America during and after the industrial Revolution. Some writers of early modern literature
include Knut Hamsun, Franz Kafka and Luigi Pirandello. Modern literature reflects many
aspects of today’s legal system. Many contemporary thrillers including John Grisham’s are
reflective of today’s legal system. Books like Franz Kafka’s The Trail and the recently
released series Delhi Crime exposes the horrid situation of our legal system today. Some
books like crime and punishment show a different perspective altogether.

“The law and literature movement is a good example to interrelate literature and law. The
movement can be traced back to 1973 in the publication of James Boyd White’s the Legal
Imagination (White, 1973). Since White's work, the law and literature movement has become
increasingly "serious " as a distinct form of jurisprudence. One of the basic jurisprudential

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claims of this movement is that the study of literature is useful for studying the ethical nature
of law; that literary thought and practice offer insight about the human subjects in law
(Minda, 1995). Another claim is that law and literature are intimately related because each
depends on language and a way of reading, writing, and speaking that involves similar
interpretive practices.”

“At the same time, many judicial opinions were considered to have literary merit. There must
be others of equal distinction elsewhere but some notable personalities we are familiar with
include Lord Denning, Krishna Iyer and Oliver Wendell Holmes. A literary bent lets lawyers
better and judges articulate more clearly. Critical theory is also an invaluable tool in the study
of law, so key to the study of literature, with attention to detail.”

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The research project titled “Modern Literature and its influence in the development of
legal principles” is based on the Doctrinal Research methodology which is usually
qualitative in nature.

Doctrinal research is a legal oriented research also known as library-based research. It is used
to research law. This method involves analyzing a doctrine which is legal and its application
and analysis. This type of research can be both qualitative and quantitative.

This project will aim at identifying and analyzing the law with the help of research. It will be
a qualitative research which will not involve any numerical data, but instead will have
meaning, concepts, description etc. which are in other words not quantitative in nature.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Stowe Harriet Breecher

Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly, is a novel by American author Harriet
Beecher Stowe that is said to have "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War". The book
does not over dramatize the events in a black slave’s life but presents a deeply disturbing
picture through subtle prompts. The Book primarily talks about a black slave – Tom – Whose
journey throughout is a tragic truth and effect of the slavery system. The book portrays
characters is such a way that the readers relate to its expected yet melancholic turn of events.
The book triggered the suppressed sentiments of anger and discontent among the blacks and
made the white masses aware of how distasteful slavery really is.

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“The Feminist Companion to literature in English: women writers from the Middle
Ages to the present, Blaine.”

This Article may not have much literary merit but it does paint a very interesting picture of
the conditions of women writers before the advent of feminism. It explains the struggle of
women to make their voices heard and how literature played an instrumental role in the same.
The article is very insightful and at times a bit dramatic. The author in the article argues that
the contributions of women are undermined more often than not. It also present different
arguments from various thinkers on the same.

Popular literature during civil war, Thomas Curator

With the formation of the Confederacy at the beginning of the American Civil War (1861–
1865), the Southern literary establishment foresaw the dawning of a new literature. This
article provides information about the development of literature in the southern states of the
present-day USA. During this time, literature played a profound role in order to influence
people’s opinion about slavery and the civil war. The article provides a very detailed account
of how literature developed during this time and how through its development it helped form
a sympathetic opinion towards the blacks in America. It portrays the role of literature in the
assimilation of the southern states into the United states of America and not the blue states
and the red states.

The Development of Feminism in English Literature, Martina Halířová.

“This thesis is concerned with the development of feminism throughout the 19th and 20th
centuries in English literature and will also reach outside these centuries to briefly discuss
how feminism is perceived at present. Feminism is a wide phenomenon and it is still a topic
to be discussed. This article talks about contributions of notable female writes and how their
contribution helped in the recognition of feminist literature in the otherwise patriarchal
literature.”

The Legal Imagination, J.B. White.

The books so far as the researcher has read extends the theory of law as
constitutive rhetoric, asking how one may criticize the legal culture and the texts
within it. The book is one of the reasns why the law and literature movement was
popularized. The book helps understand how literature plays a crucial role in the
evolving of jurisprudence. It claims that literary merit helps legal arguments reach

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the common masses further helping the development of said arguments. He says it
a cycle where one benefits from the other.

The Civil War in American Culture, Will Kaufman.

The Civil War, as Will Kaufman watches, is an enviously protected social property. Right
now book of articles, he investigates the discussion that has seethed since 1865 on the war's
significance. He contends that a significant social battle has continued with respect to the idea
of political authority during the contention, the decision of military saints, the functions of
memory, the complexities of sexual orientation, and the noteworthiness of race. In doing as
such, he expands upon crafted by researchers in an assortment of fields.

The Links Between Law and Literature, AP Shah

The article presents an interesting opinion on how fluency in literature can help in the
progress of legal principles. The author observes that some legal contentions and principles
also have literary merit to them. He argues that reason and creativity is what binds literature
and law.

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ANALYSIS

HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE OF MODERN LITERATURE

Modern Literature has had a significant impact in the late 19 th and early 20th century. Some of
the significant contributions are Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Feminine Mystique and The
Second Sex were one of the biggest literary hits in modern times. In this part the researcher
will deal with how these books and many others sparked two of the biggest revolutions – The
American civil war and the Feminist movement.

Modern Literature and the American civil war

“When Abraham Lincon first met Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1862 - a decade after she
wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the second-best selling book of the 19th century after the Bible –
he said - So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.”

“Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly, (Stowe, 1852) is a subjugation novel by
American creator Harriet Beecher Stowe. Distributed in 1852, the novel profoundly affected
mentalities toward African Americans and subjugation in the U.S. what's more, is said to
have helped lay the preparation for the Civil War (Kaufman, 2006)”.”

“Stowe, a Connecticut-conceived instructor at the Hartford Female Seminary and a

“Other Important literary contributions include schmaltzy novels like The Aide-de-Camp by
James Dabney McCabe from Virginia, The Trials of the Soldier’s Wife: A Tale of the Second
American Revolution, A Romance of War, Macaria by Augusta Jane Evans or Alters of
Sacrifice”– which provides an account of the Frist Battle of Manassas by Confederate
General P. G. T. (Cutrar, 2015).

“The Georgia humorist Charles Henry Smith, composing under the pen name Arp, was the
South's most mainstream essayist. The artistic nature of such contributions was poor, yet they
provided escape and a proportion of motivation for Southerners debilitated by the war. Both
Cooke's Life of Stonewall Jackson and Evans' Macaria were prohibited in the Union armed
force, and appropriated duplicates were scorched. The two scholars, Union leaders felt,

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offered a completely too convincing evaluation of the Confederate reason and its bosses, and,
they dreaded, were probably going to influence their troopers' feelings for the South (Cutrar,
2015).”

The legacy of the Civil War includes the modern mass-circulation of literature and print
media, and the obsession of readers for both. The war also reinforced the vast disparity of
access to media between the North and South.

Modern literature and the feminist movement

“The movement was classified in 3 waves in accordance with the main goals of these waves.
Women writers during this time argued that they needed recognition of their potential and not
only equality. Virginia Woolf and a few other writers argue on how women’s talents have
been wasted over the centuries. Walter’s in support of these arguments comments ‘She
contemplates a number of greatly talented women from the past, from the Duchess of
Newcastle to George Eliot and Charlotte Brontë – who were deprived of experience,
intercourse and travel and that is the reason they never wrote quite as powerfully and
generously as they might have.’ Woolf also reasoned that a woman needs money and a room
of her own to be able to write.” (Halířová, n.d.)

“The feminist movement produced feminist fiction, feminist non-fiction, and feminist poetry,
which created new interest in women's writing. It prompted a general reevaluation of
women's academic and historical contributions in response to the belief that women's lives
and contributions have been underrepresented as areas of scholarly interest (Blaine, 1990).”

“The boundless enthusiasm for women’s composing is identified with a general reassessment
and extension of the scholarly group. Enthusiasm for post-frontier written works, gay and
lesbian writing, composing by non-white individuals, working individuals' composition, and
the social creations of other generally minimized gatherings has brought about an entire scale
development of what is considered writing, and classifications heretofore not viewed as
abstract, for example, kids' composition, diaries, letters, travel composing, and numerous
others are presently the subjects of insightful intrigue (Blaine, 1990). Most classes and
subgenres have experienced a comparative investigation, so scholarly examinations have
entered new domains, for example, the ‘female gothic’ or ladies' sci-fi” (Blaine, 1990).

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CONTEMPORARY ISSUES AND LITERATURE

Environment

In recent years the environmental awareness has become a growing trend. Literature has
contributed significantly in this. Be it The End of Nature by Bill McKibben or Silent Spring
by Rachel Carson. Literature plays a crucial role is raising awareness as well as proposing
solutions for the growing ecological crisis.

War

An excellent example of how literature portrayed and created a lasting impact in Europe post
WW1 is All quiet on the western front by Erich Maria Remarque a German writer. The book
is a heart wrenching portrayal of the condition of soldiers during the great war. It was one of
the first books to be banned in Nazi Germany. It highlights how war affects an entire
generation whether they were involved in the war or not.

Governance

In the 21st century citizens have become more aware of their rights. Citizens now want to
play an active role in the functioning of the government that makes laws for them. We can
see 2014 and 2019 elections as examples to this the voting percentage has sharply increased
and in some regions maximum votes going to NOTA. People are now more aware of their
rights and literature is one of the reasons for this. Due to mass circulation of books - like
Rethinking Good Governance (Rai, 2019) - it has been possible to inform people about their
rights on a mass scale.”

Racial Inequality

It is no secret that Racism is still very prevalent in the society. In the past couple of years
hate crimes against the black as well as people of other races have increased noticeably. The
hate you give by Angie Thomas presents a disturbingly real picture of the situation.

LAW AND LITERATURE MOVEMENT.

“Maybe first to imagine the development were John Wigmore and Benjamin Cardozo, who
recognized writers and artists as the important instructors of law in the main portion of the
twentieth century. Most researchers, in any case, acknowledge James Boyd White as the
organizer of the law and writing development in light of the devoted research and recognized

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distributions he has added to this quickly developing field. Among his numerous abstract
books and articles, White's most famous distribution, The Legal Imagination, is frequently
credited with starting the law and writing development. This book, first distributed in 1973, is
a combination of treasury and study, externally looking like a customary lawful casebook yet
drawing on an a lot more extensive and increasingly assorted scope of sources, with
headnotes and questions accentuating the relationship of lawful writings to abstract
examination and scholarly messages to the legitimate issues that they investigate.”

“The movement began attracting attention in the 1970s and by the 1980s had gained
substantial ground in academia. The proponents of the law-in-literature theory, such as
Richard Weisberg and Robert Weisberg, believe that literary works, especially narratives
centered on a legal conflict, will offer lawyers and judges insight into the nature of law that
would otherwise go missing in the traditionally strict study of legal rhetoric.”

“Law as literature scholars see value in the techniques employed by literary scholars.
Generally speaking, these scholars may see legal text as a form of literature thus making
literary critique and analysis of it possible. Unlike the law in literature scholars, these minds
only see possibilities in the tools of literary theory, and not really the subject of the great
novel that law students often find themselves reading, although most might agree that
literature serves a purpose that allows for ethical development and growth within the
student.”

Jack Balkin

“Jack Balkin is a professor of constitutional law at Yale Law School. While his work in legal
rhetoric draws on literary theory, he contends that law is best analogized to the performing
arts such as music and drama, rather than to literature. For this reason, there is little to no
work in which Balkin analyzes literature's relevance to the law, but his applications of the
argument through other artistic mediums gain him admission to this discussion, as well.”

“In his views on politics and its effect on legal standards, Balkin adheres to what is known as
partisan entrenchment. This theory states that the party that controls the White House can
place in the federal courts judges and justices that share the President's political views. This
in turn affects Supreme Court justices and, ultimately, constitutional doctrine.”

Eric Heinze

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“Eric Heinze is Professor of Law & Humanities at the School of Law, Queen Mary,
University of London. In the Concept of Injustice [2] he presents a literary approach to
reasoning about justice. He calls that standpoint post-classical, in contrast to a classical
Western tradition, dating back to Plato's Republic, which assumes a static, logical opposition
between the concepts of justice and injustice. Heinze's post-classical approach recognizes the
impossibility of theorizing justice and injustice as mutually exclusive categories.”

CONCLUSION
Law and Literature are interwoven in a way that one cannot be separated from the other.
Literature has evolved through the centuries and has been the voice of the oppressed for a
very long time. As literature continues to evolve it gives perspective for the laws of the land
to evolve along with it. The researcher feels that the contribution of new theories regarding
public policy have further facilitated the improvement of justice systems and legal principles.

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WORKS CITED
Blaine. (1990). The feminist companion to literature in English: women writers from the
Middle Ages to the present.

Cutrar, T. (2015, October 27). Popular literature during civil war. Retrieved from
Encyclopedia Virginia:
https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Popular_Literature_During_the_Civil_War#sta
rt_entry

Halířová, M. (n.d.). The Development of Feminism in English Literature. Retrieved from

Kaufman, W. (2006). The Civil War in American Culture. Edinburg University trust.

Minda, G. (1995). Law and Jurisprudence At Century's End London. Law and Literature. In
Postmodern Legal Movements, 149-166. Retrieved from
www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qg2gf.13

Shah, A. ( 2017, October 31). The links between law and literature. . The Hindu. .

Stowe, H. B. (1852). Uncle Tom's Cabin. Boston.

White, J. (1973). The Legal Imagination.

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