Law in the Tempest

Karin Trustedt, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), has published "The Tragedy of Law in Shakespeare," in Law & Humanities, volume 1. Here is the abstract.

This paper focuses on the status of law in regard to nature and art in Shakespeare‘s late play "The Tempest." The inscription of law into nature as it can be seen in King Lear‘s trial to legitimize sovereignty with nature, leads to crisis and the suspension of law. Rather than being natural, it points to an "outlaw" dimension of law internal to sovereignty, a dimension that also plays a central role in other Shakespearean tragedies. This "tragedy of law" suffers a sea-change "into something rich and strange" in the Shakespearean romance "The Tempest." While Shakespeare‘s late plays do take up the setting of tragedy, they, with their artistic turn towards a special kind of comedy, play on possibilities of life, promise and forgiveness beyond the tragical patterns of law.

Download the paper from SSRN here(priced).