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Oxford Journal of Legal Studies Advance Access originally published online on February 20, 2009
Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 2009 29(1):139-168; doi:10.1093/ojls/gqp003
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Power Politics and the Rule of Law: Shakespeare's First Historical Tetralogy and Law's ‘Foundations’1

Eric Heinze*

* Professor of Law and Humanities, Queen Mary University of London, Paris (Maîtrise 1986); Harvard (J.D. 1991); Leiden (Doctoraat 1995).


  Abstract

Legal scholars’ interest in Shakespeare has often focused on conventional legal rules and procedures, such as those of The Merchant of Venice or Measure for Measure. Those plays certainly reveal systemic injustice, but within stable, prosperous societies, which enjoy a generally well-functioning legal order. In contrast, Shakespeare's first historical tetralogy explores the conditions for the very possibility of a legal system, in terms not unlike those described by Hobbes a half-century later. The first tetralogy's deeply collapsed, quasi-anarchic society lacks any functioning legal regime. Its power politics are not, as in many of Shakespeare's other plays, merely latent, lurking beneath the patina of an otherwise functioning legal order. They pervade all of society. Dissenting from a long critical tradition, this article suggests that the figure of Henry VI does not merely represent antiquated medievalism or inept rule. Through Henry's constant recourse to legal process, arbitration and anti-militarism, the first tetralogy goes beyond questions about how to establish a functioning legal order. It examines the possibility, and meaning, of a just one.

Warm thanks to Mary Ford and Phil Bielby for organizing and chairing the session. This article was presented at the Legal Theory section of the Society of Legal Scholars Conference, London School of Economics, 15–18 September 2008. Many thanks also to Andrew Hadfield, Alexander Leggatt, Randall Martin, Katharine Eisaman Maus, and two anonymous readers, for their invaluable comments, and to Ewan McKendrick for his kind assistance.


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E. Heinze
Imperialism and Nationalism in Early Modernity: The 'Cosmopolitan' and The 'Provincial' in Shakespeare's Cymbeline
Social Legal Studies, September 1, 2009; 18(3): 373 - 396.
[Abstract] [PDF]


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