Book Review: The Myth of Law and Literature

In The Myth of Moral Justice, Thane Rosenbaum generates an ambitious and idealistic plan for a rapprochement between law and morality, between emotion and reason, and between law and its literary representations. Laudable and inspiring, Rosenbaum\u27s project remains flawed in several ways that are traceable back to his reliance on aspects of law and literature scholarship. Unfortunately, Rosenbaum\u27s attempt to replace the myth of moral justice with a truly moral legal system depends itself on a particular set of myths about law and literature. After examining two recent critiques of the law and literature movement, one from the vantage point of law and the other from the perspective of literary studies, this review suggests an alternative approach that would attend to law\u27s institutional dimensions