Literary Trials: Exceptio Artis and Theories of Literature in Court

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This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched. From the 19th century onwards, famous literary trials have caught the attention of readers, academics and the public at large. Indeed it is striking that more often than not, it was the texts of renowned writers that were dealt with by the courts, as for example Gustave Flauberts Madame Bovary and Charles Baudelaires Les Fleurs du Mal in France, James Joyces Ulysses and Henry Millers Tropic of Cancer in the US, D.H. Lawrences Lady Chatterleys Lover in Great-Britain, up to the more recent trials on Klaus Manns Mephisto and Maxim Billers novel Esra in Germany. By bringing together international leading experts, Literary Trials represents the first step towards a systematic discussion of literary trials on a global scale. Beginning by first reassessing some of the most famous of these trials, it also analyses less well-known but significant literary trials. Special attention is paid to recent developments in the relationship between literature and judicature, pointing towards an increasing role for libel and defamation in the societal demarcation of what literature is, and is not, allowed to do.

Reviews

This edited collection is remarkably cohesive, whilst at the same time it covers an impressive scope. * Internationale Neerlandistiek (Bloomsbury translation) *
This highly informative book shows how, in different countries with different laws, concepts of literature of one kind or another have been an integral element in legal arguments and court decisions regarding the banning of works, and the censure of a works author. Emphasizing the complex role played by concepts or theories of literature in particular cases, Literary Trials is impressive in its comparative scope. What makes it essential reading is how it updates existing scholarship on literary trials by analyzing how recent cases have moved to different legal ground such as defamation, and have brought into question well established ideas about literature, such as exceptio artis. * Mark Sanders, Professor of Comparative Literature, New York University, USA *
Literary Trials attests to the complexity of interactions between legal tribunals and literature. The volume demonstrates how legal actors rely on by no means unchanging literary theories to deliberate on whether literature should be legally contained or left alone, when it is determined to belong to a specialized aesthetic realm standing apart from the judicable. With essays on developments in Germany, the Netherlands, France, Britain, and Belgium, and elsewhere, Literary Trials serves to move the project of articulating European Law and Literature as well as comparative research forward by demonstrating the specificity of individual legal-institutional and literary histories as well as by addressing supranational developments. * Greta Olson, Professor of English and American Literature and Cultural Studies, University of Giessen, Germany, Fellow at The Kte Hamburger Center for Advanced Study in the Humanities Law as Culture," Germany, and Co-founder of the European Network for Law and Literature *

Author Bio

Ralf Grttemeier is Professor and Chair of Dutch Literature in the Faculty of Linguistics and Cultural Studies at Oldenburg University, Germany. He has formerly held the positions of Dean of Linguistics and Cultural Studies at Oldenburg University, Research Fellow of the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study, and co-editor and editor-in-chief of the journal Internationale Neerlandistiek. He is co-editor of the journal Spiegel der Letteren.