Law's Interior: Legal and Literary Constructions of the Self - Hardcover

"The value of Kevin Crotty's book lies not only in the clarity, elegance, and strength of its central argument, but also in its implicit suggestion that we once again make 'normal' the quest at its heart: the interpretive exploration of literary classics for their insights into jurisprudential questions about the nature of law and justice. By inviting us to participate in its enterprise, Law's Interior enriches our understanding of ourselves and of our often conflicting legal ideals. Well-conceived, well-researched, and well-written, this book is a pleasure to read." -- Robin West, Georgetown University Law Center, author of Caring for Justice "In this cautionary note to Legal Realism, Crotty reminds us that law is not just something that governments do. Instead, it is a characteristic human activity and, as such, a part of the way that people think of themselves." -- Paul Lermack, Bradley University * The Law and Politics Book Review * "Crotty provides a stimulating addition to a growing body of investigations in the comparative study of law and literature.... Crotty makes a persuasive case for the way law and literature complement and illuminate each other, a case that humanists and lawyers should find equally instructive and beneficial." * Choice * "Although Law's Interior does not break new ground in Stevens interpretation, the book is beautifully written.... The great virture of Crotty's book is his use of Stevens's preoccupation with the tension between reality and the imagination... to develop a striking argument as to the proper role of rights in American life." -- David A. Skeel Jr., University of Pennsylvania Law School * The Wallace Stevens Journal *

In Law's Interior, Kevin M. Crotty draws on several important literary works to offer a new model of the relationship between citizens and their laws, one that emphasizes the power of law to shape citizens and to foster-or discourage-their autonomy. Crotty maintains that citizens are "inside" the law-they are the law's interior. Literature, he finds, can be relevant to law by emphasizing the connections between law and the world around it-a stance that corrects the tendency of legal theory to treat law as a separate, autonomous entity.The texts Crotty examines-Aeschylus' Oresteia, St. Augustine's Confessions, and the poetry of Wallace Stevens-question the rationalist optimism that Crotty regards as distorting much recent theorizing about law. Further, he asserts that the inability of courts to state clearly the principles animating their decisions demonstrates the stranglehold the positivist model has on us and our legal imaginations.Crotty sketches a model of the relation between citizens and laws that supplements the more familiar idea of law as something deliberated and enacted by rational, inherently autonomous citizens. The most important legal decisions of the past fifty years, Crotty says, rest on the perception that the state, far from merely respecting the "innate" autonomy of its citizens, actively shapes that autonomy. Law's Interior should contribute to a better understanding of the real principles underlying some landmark decisions by the Supreme Court.