At this stage of my PhD I am getting used to justifying my academic existence to those around me, people who question the exact purpose or meaning behind blue sky research like mine and while someone researching cancer may find it easy to explain to others why their research is important it is much harder for those of us who are engaged with topics of a slightly more esoteric nature. When a ‘layman’ reads the title of my project it immediately seems like something which should be an academic hobby rather than something upon which to pin a career. For me a pithy title is still someway off but for those interested my research is focused around the idea that Victorian Novelists were influenced by the action of the legal system and the judicial decisions which made up the common law: and they expressed their opinions on that law through the themes and narrative of their novels. I intend to examine to what extent were writers influenced by the actions of the court, where they got this information, what exactly were they were presented with, how they understood/interpreted that action and it’s accuracy, what their interpretation portrays of their opinions on the legislative/common law changes, and did this tally with/run counter to public opinion?...This is usually around the time people are sorry that they asked.
I am sure many are wondering what the heck relevance that could possibly have –old books are antiquarian curiosities and old law is largely irrelevant but I am inclined to disagree. Law, like much of literature, is contextual and it is my conjecture that one feeds into the context of the other. The law is a social barometer of sorts and a society is defined by that which it criminalises and marginalises, so a novel which purports to reflect a given society must take into account the rules which bind the lives of the characters. I will spare the blog audience an in-depth analysis of this for the moment because for the present the conclusion rather than the process through which I came by it is important. At this stage most people say ‘Well that’s all well and good, it’s even interesting but it is still merely blue sky content and is largely useless!’ However, what I intend to present is an examination of how the writers perceived the law, it’s interpretations, and how far these were correct because it is all well and good having righteous legal intentions created in the best interests of the people but if the perception or operation of legislative and common law are not in line with this then the legislative begins to loose touch with those who it intends to protect.
If a cogent argument can be made of the interaction between the law and literary expression 100 years ago then now, in an age of greater social awareness this interaction may still hold true. In which case both legislative and judicial bodies may be able to observe the way in which their judicial opinions and legislative decisions are expressed and interpreted by the masses who live with them through modern literature.
This is generally the point when people ask why I am using Victorian Literature to create the connection rather than modern texts if my final assertion is that modern texts speak to the operation of the legal system. Well in the words of Julie Andrews ‘Let's start at the very beginning A very good place to start When you read you begin with A-B-C’ and the Victorian period was a time of massive legal upheaval in which arguably the modern legal system was born and in order to ascertain the connections depth it would seem a good idea to go back to a time when the common persons legal interactions were limited and their knowledge of the system was more limited again but increased standards of education meant that access to newspapers, books and early forms of ‘mass media’ were on the rise.
If the connection I purport to prove is present then, then now, when mass media assists the common man in understanding the effect of legislative decisions on his life, it should be a much more straight forward connection to make.
Well! That’s the theory anyway.
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| Courtesy of PhD |
