29,131 research outputs found
Paul Raffield: Shakespeare’s Strangers and English Law
No full textReview of Paul Raffield's Shakespeare’s Strangers and English La
Shakespeare's strangers and English law
No full textThrough analysis of 5 plays by Shakespeare, Paul Raffield examines what it meant to be a 'stranger' to English law in the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean period. The numbers of strangers increased dramatically in the late sixteenth century, as refugees fled religious persecution in continental Europe and sought sanctuary in Protestant England.
In the context of this book, strangers are not only persons ethnically or racially different from their English counterparts, be they immigrants, refugees, or visitors. The term also includes those who transgress or are simply excluded by their status from established legal norms by virtue of their faith, sexuality, or mode of employment.
Each chapter investigates a particular category of 'stranger'. Topics include the treatment of actors in late Elizabethan England and the punishment of 'counterfeits' (Measure for Measure); the standing of refugees under English law and the reception of these people by the indigenous population (The Comedy of Errors); the establishment of 'Troynovant' as an international trading centre on the banks of the Thames (Troilus and Cressida); the role of law and the state in determining the rights of citizens and aliens (The Merchant of Venice); and the disenfranchised, estranged position of the citizen in a dysfunctional society and an acephalous realm (King Lear).
This is the third sole-authored book by Paul Raffield on the subject of Shakespeare and the Law. The others are Shakespeare's Imaginary Constitution: Late Elizabethan Politics and the Theatre of Law (2010) and The Art of Law in Shakespeare (2017), both published by Hart/Bloomsbury
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Shakespeare's strangers and English law /
No full textThrough analysis of 5 plays by Shakespeare, Paul Raffield examines what it meant to be a 'stranger' to English law in the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean period. The numbers of strangers increased dramatically in the late sixteenth century, as refugees fled religious persecution in continental Europe and sought sanctuary in Protestant England. In the context of this book, strangers are not only persons ethnically or racially different from their English counterparts, be they immigrants, refugees, or visitors. The term also includes those who transgress or are simply excluded by their status from established legal norms by virtue of their faith, sexuality, or mode of employment. Each chapter investigates a particular category of 'stranger'. Topics include the treatment of actors in late Elizabethan England and the punishment of 'counterfeits' (Measure for Measure); the standing of refugees under English law and the reception of these people by the indigenous population (The Comedy of Errors); the establishment of 'Troynovant' as an international trading centre on the banks of the Thames (Troilus and Cressida); the role of law and the state in determining the rights of citizens and aliens (The Merchant of Venice); and the disenfranchised, estranged position of the citizen in a dysfunctional society and an acephalous realm (King Lear). This is the third sole-authored book by Paul Raffield on the subject of Shakespeare and the Law. The others are Shakespeare's Imaginary Constitution: Late Elizabethan Politics and the Theatre of Law (2010) and The Art of Law in Shakespeare (2017), both published by Hart/Bloomsbury.
Raffield Benjamin Paul, Inside that fortress sat a few peasant men, and it was half-made
No full textRaffield Benjamin Paul, Inside that fortress sat a few peasant men, and it was half-made: a study of 'Viking' fortifications in the British Isles, AD793-1066, Thèse de doctorat soutenue en 2010, (Université de Birmingham) Résumé/abstract : The study of Viking fortifications is a neglected subject which could reveal much to archaeologists about the Viking way of life. The popular representation of these Scandinavian seafarers is often as drunken, bloodthirsty heathens who rampaged across Brita..
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PAUL RAFFIELD. The Art of Law in Shakespeare.
No full textShakespeare’s relationship with Law may be well established, but Paul Raffield demonstrates its richness and variety in The Art of Law in Shakespeare. Building on his work in Shakespeare’s Imaginary Constitution: Late Elizabethan Politics and the Theatre of Law (Hart, 2010), Raffield turns his attention in this monograph to the early years of Jacobean rule. In the Introduction, he outlines his central premise, that ‘during the first decade of Jacobean rule, the arts of law and drama developed contiguously, the one aesthetic form learning from and imitating the other’ (p. 9). He consequently sets out his core interests as the exploration of the representation of the legal institution in Shakespeare’s Jacobean plays and the ways in which they thematize ‘the rationale of Jacobean kingship and the (often fractious) relationship between crown and common law’ (p. 11). However, framing the narrative in this way impedes the coherence of the overarching argument and understates the wider scholarly contribution of this book. Underpinning the monograph is continued attention to ‘the correlation between law and nature, and the identification of common law with a higher moral law, inscribed by God in the hearts of men’ (p. 2). Raffield seems, above all, to be interested in the mythologizing of common law’s origins—which is to say the assertion of the primacy of the English secular legal system by way of rhetorically rooting it in classical and Judaeo-Christian histories—as a way of asserting legal authority. Equally important throughout is the question of genealogy and how common law (a system of precedent reliant on history and change) meets, and maintains authority in the face of, cultural challenges such as the professionalization of the legal system, the dangers of treason, legal pluralism and assertions of royal authority, and the expansion of trade and colonialism. This monograph therefore contributes to recent discussions in the field of law and literature and Renaissance Studies more broadly about the transnational in early modern Europe, specifically through its emphasis on the British political and legal desire for dominion
Sunday's child : drama, ensemble and the community of law
No full textSunday's Child is a play, written by four undergraduate law students at The University of Warwick, as part of their assessment for an optional half-module, Origins, Images and Cultures of English Law. The play reflects innovative teaching practices in the area of law and humanities. Based on the professional experience of the course teacher (Dr Paul Raffield) as an actor and director, the techniques of the rehearsal room are introduced into the classroom, enabling the students to develop transferable and cross-curricular skills of negotiation, communication, presentation and performance. In the course of the play's construction, the students develop into a cohesive ensemble, working collaboratively to fulfil the communitarian ethos of the module. The teaching and learning process is intended to demonstrate the Aristotelian principle (central to the substantive content of the course), as espoused in The Politics and The Nicomachean Ethics, that the foundations of justice lie in the establishment of community: the bonds of friendship provide the basis for the ideal polis
The art of law in Shakespeare
No full textThrough an examination of five plays by Shakespeare, Paul Raffield analyses the contiguous development of common law and poetic drama during the first decade of Jacobean rule. The broad premise of The Art of Law in Shakespeare is that the 'artificial reason' of law was a complex art form that shared the same rhetorical strategy as the plays of Shakespeare.
Common law and Shakespearean drama of this period employed various aesthetic devices to capture the imagination and the emotional attachment of their respective audiences. Common law of the Jacobean era, as spoken in the law courts, learnt at the Inns of Court and recorded in the law reports, used imagery that would have been familiar to audiences of Shakespeare's plays. In its juridical form, English law was intrinsically dramatic, its adversarial mode of expression being founded on an agonistic model. Conversely, Shakespeare borrowed from the common law some of its most critical themes: justice, legitimacy, sovereignty, community, fairness, and (above all else) humanity. - See more at: http://www.bloomsburyprofessional.com/uk/the-art-of-law-in-shakespeare-9781509905478/#sthash.JkmHK2pb.dpu
Shakespeare's Imaginary Constitution: Late-Elizabethan Politics and the Theatre of Law
No full textThe relations between politics, law and literature in the last decade of Elizabethan rule, the praise of the immemorial antiquity of the ancient common law constitution, as well as the recourse to their theatrical representation are the topics considered in Shakespeare’s Imaginary Constitution by Paul Raffield
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The art of law in Shakespeare /
No full text"Through an examination of five plays by Shakespeare, Paul Raffield analyses the contiguous development of common law and poetic drama during the first decade of Jacobean rule. The broad premise of [this book] is that the 'artificial reason' of law was a complex art form that shared the same rhetorical strategy as the plays of Shakespeare. Common law and Shakespearean drama of this period employed various aesthetic devices to capture the imagination and the emotional attachment of their respective audiences. Common law of the Jacobean era, as spoken in the law courts, learnt at the Inns of Court and recorded in the law reports, used imagery that would have been familiar to audiences of Shakespeare's plays. In its juridical form, English law was intrinsically dramatic, its adversarial mode of expression being founded on an agonistic model. Conversely, Shakespeare borrowed from the common law some of its most critical themes: justice, legitimacy, sovereignty, community, fairness, and (above all else) humanity. Each chapter investigates a particular aspect of the common law, seen through the lens of a specific play by Shakespeare. Topics include the unprecedented significance of rhetorical skills to the practice and learning of common law (Love's Labour's Lost); the early modern treason trial as exemplar of the theatre of law (Macbeth); the art of law as the legitimate distillation of the law of nature (The Winter's Tale); the efforts of common lawyers to create an image of nationhood from both classical and Judeo-Christian mythography (Cymbeline); and the theatrical device of the island as microcosm of the Jacobean state and the project of imperial expansion (The Tempest)." -- Page i
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