Abstract
This article discusses legal interpretation and poetic interpretation as instances of speculative reasoning. Their similarities are based on the common use of analogical reasoning. Both reading a poem and solving a concrete legal dispute by using what lawyers call analogy, are examples of what Cass R. Sunstein has called an incomplete way of thinking.1 Poetic interpretation is based on the assumption that no truth can be uncovered from a poem’s meaning; since it aims at reaching persuasive conclusions. In my view, legal interpretation, especially the one Dworkin calls into play to solve so-called “hard cases”,2 fits a similar description. Quite often legal interpreters do not reach the truth scientifically, but aim at reaching persuasive conclusions to solve concrete legal cases. The fundamental difference between poetry and law is the system of sovereign right which makes legal interpretation enforceable. This article explores the interpretive relation between poetry and the law. There are strong reasons to believe that analogical thinking plays a fundamental role in this connection.
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