Literary Trials: Exceptio Artis and Theories of Literature in Court

by Ralf Grüttemeier (Editor)

Overview

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 Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal in France, James Joyce's Ulysses and Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer in the US, D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover in Great-Britain, up to the more recent trials on Klaus Mann's Mephisto and Maxim Biller's 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501334870
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	07/27/2017
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Ralf Grüttemeier 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 jourbanal Internationale Neerlandistiek. He is co-editor of the jourbanal Spiegel der Letteren.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Literary trials as mirrors. An introduction
Ralf Grüttemeier (Oldenburg University, Germany)

I. Towards more autonomy of literature. Histories of literary trials
1. The Legal Responsibility of the Writer between Objectivity and Subjectivity: The French Case (19th-21st Century)
Gisèle Sapiro (CNRS (Centre de sociologie européenne-Paris), France)
2. The Making of the 1959 Obscene Publications Act: Trials and Debates on Literary Obscenity in Britain Before the Case of Lady Chatterley
Anton Kirchhofer (Oldenburg University, Germany)
3. Law and the Literary Field in South Africa, 1910-2010
Ted Laros (Oldenburg University, Germany)
4. De Sade as a Benchmark. Dutch Legal Actions Against Obscenity in Literature, Theatre and Film in the 1960s and 70s
Klaus Beekman (Universiteit van Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
5. Freedom of Satire? Oscar Panizza's Play Das Liebeskonzil in a Series of Trials in Germany and Austria
Claudia Lieb (University of Münster, Germany)
6. 'Words Are No Deeds': Trials Against Literature in the Soviet Union
Sylvia Sasse (University of Zürich, Switzerland)

II. Change of Rules? The Challenges of Defamation and Religion
7. Literature Losing Legal Ground in Germany? The Case of Maxim Biller's Esra (2003-2009)
Ralf Grüttemeier (Oldenburg University, Germany)
8. Defamation Trials in Belgium: The Case of Herman Brusselmans' Uitgeverij Guggenheimer
Katharina Hupe (Oldenburg University, Germany)
9. Libellous Literature: Elton John and the Perils of Close Reading
Peter D. McDonald (University of Oxford, UK)
10. 'The law is a ass': Obscenity, Blasphemy and Other Literary Offences After Lady Chatterley
Martin A. Kayman (Cardiff University, UK)

Notes on Contributors
Index

Editorial 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 work's 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 Käte Hamburger Center for Advanced Study in the Humanities “Law as Culture," Germany, and Co-founder of the European Network for Law and Literature

From the Publisher