In order to better understand the present relationship between law and
literature, I wish to explore that relationship as it existed before the
extensive and far reaching English administrative and legal reforms of 1832.
I consider my current research to be an "archaeology" of disciplinary
boundaries using English romantic writers and legal theorists of the 1790s
(and later) to trace the genesis of ideologies still prominent today in both
spheres. It is my contention that the 1790s begins a crucial period in the
development of the discourses of (English) law and literary
criticism/authorship in which the two mutually defined themselves as
professional disciplines in opposition to the other. My ultimate goal
is to suggest that modern legal scholarship must marginalize law and
literature studies for the same reason Romantic legal discourse sought to
distinguish itself from literature: the literary imagination is supposedly
corrosive to the rhetorical authority of the modern state. By looking at the
history behind our current ideologies of law and literature, I feel we can
better frame and comprehend the very real power investments behind their
conflict today.