The Codification of Western Law and the Poethics of Disclosure

Abstract

Speaking perceptively of the criminal procedure in The Brothers Karamazov, Edward Wasiolek points out that the process is an obstacle to the facts ... [It] brings forth only technique, ambition and triviality.2 Wolfgang Holdheim, writing on the same subject, observes that the legal error at the end of that novel is indicative of the ambiguities inherent in modern literature's approach to reality.' These critics have shown a sensitivity to a topic otherwise still rarely treated: the use of the legal theme within the modern novel not merely for effect, but also for thematic, structural and formal purposes not explicitly stated by the writer. Why is the novel a particularly happy generic medium for the intense development of a legal theme? The answer launches us into a more complicated theoretical realm than we might intuitively expect, but it is one worth entering in an effort to understand the full import of the theme as actually used by these novelists. It involves a three-part response encompassing dramatic, historical and formal elements within the genre. The dramatic aspect indigenous to the artistic use of the law stands out, of course, as a common feature in a variety of literary periods and genres.4 Epitomized in the scene, the legal theme is employed in tragedy, for example, as an almost perfect Aristotelian device for furthering the action,' and for producing the reversals and discoveries that lead to catharsis within the audience. In comedy, the trial provides an excellent medium for untying the Gordian Knot, and restoring the characters and their environment to a properly happy, anterior condition.6 But these observations about the efficacy of trial scenes for effect on the stage leave open at least two questions. First, how may we distinguish the law's appeal to literary artists from that of other human professional endeavors that are equally as provocative in reality but far less frequently depicted in art? Second, how do we proceed to explain the interest of narrative as opposed to theatrical art in the law? If we observe that the law provides by the very. structure of its operation a culminating point inscribing all the elements of theatricality otherwise