{"title":"‘Hell has no flames, only windows that won’t open’: justice as escape in law and literature","authors":"D. Gurnham","doi":"10.1080/17521483.2019.1670900","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Struggles for justice are commonly articulated in literature and drama through metaphors of physical encumbrance (of being cramped, constrained, entangled and mired) and escape (to open landscapes and a view of the horizon and sky). What is less well known or observed is that this metaphorical opposition of encumbrance/escape plays an important role in legal language too. This article traces the appearance of this metaphor across some key moments in English criminal law in which injustice is conceptualized metaphorically in terms of being held up, kept down or back, etc. and that achieving a just outcome necessitates shaking off the encumbrance and getting free. Through a close reading of some important legal judgments, it shows how establishing this intersection between law and literature helps to advance our understanding of the plausibility and persuasiveness of legal language. The article applies this insight to producing a new reading of the Supreme Court’s recent reworking of dishonesty in Ivey v Genting Casinos [2017] SC 67, as well as a novel re-examination of established and apparently familiar authorities on recklessness and excuses to murder.","PeriodicalId":42313,"journal":{"name":"Law and Humanities","volume":"13 1","pages":"269 - 293"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2019-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17521483.2019.1670900","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Law and Humanities","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17521483.2019.1670900","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"LAW","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
ABSTRACT Struggles for justice are commonly articulated in literature and drama through metaphors of physical encumbrance (of being cramped, constrained, entangled and mired) and escape (to open landscapes and a view of the horizon and sky). What is less well known or observed is that this metaphorical opposition of encumbrance/escape plays an important role in legal language too. This article traces the appearance of this metaphor across some key moments in English criminal law in which injustice is conceptualized metaphorically in terms of being held up, kept down or back, etc. and that achieving a just outcome necessitates shaking off the encumbrance and getting free. Through a close reading of some important legal judgments, it shows how establishing this intersection between law and literature helps to advance our understanding of the plausibility and persuasiveness of legal language. The article applies this insight to producing a new reading of the Supreme Court’s recent reworking of dishonesty in Ivey v Genting Casinos [2017] SC 67, as well as a novel re-examination of established and apparently familiar authorities on recklessness and excuses to murder.
期刊介绍：
Law and Humanities is a peer-reviewed journal, providing a forum for scholarly discourse within the arts and humanities around the subject of law. For this purpose, the arts and humanities disciplines are taken to include literature, history (including history of art), philosophy, theology, classics and the whole spectrum of performance and representational arts. The remit of the journal does not extend to consideration of the laws that regulate practical aspects of the arts and humanities (such as the law of intellectual property). Law and Humanities is principally concerned to engage with those aspects of human experience which are not empirically quantifiable or scientifically predictable. Each issue will carry four or five major articles of between 8,000 and 12,000 words each. The journal will also carry shorter papers (up to 4,000 words) sharing good practice in law and humanities education; reports of conferences; reviews of books, exhibitions, plays, concerts and other artistic publications.
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