Gary Watt
Equity Stirring
The Story of Justice Beyond Law
Oxford, Hart Publishing, mai 2012 (nlle. éd.), 258 p, ISBN:9781849463553, £20
Présentation éditeur
Sir Frederick Pollock wrote that 'English-speaking lawyers ...have specialised the name of Equity'. It is typical for legal textbooks on the law of equity to acknowledge the diverse ways in which the word 'equity' is used and then to focus on the legal sense of the word to the exclusion of all others. This book is an exploration of the meaning of equity as artists and thinkers have portrayed it within the law and without. Watt finds in law and literature an equity that is necessary to good life and good law but which does not require us to subscribe to a moral or 'natural law' ideal. It is an equity that takes a principled and practical stand against rigid formalism and unthinking routine in law and life, and so provides timely resistance to current forces of extremism and entitlement culture. The book provides the legal scholar with deep insight into the rhetorical, literary and historical foundations of the idea of equity in law, and provides the law student with a cultural history of, and an imaginative introduction to, the technical law of equity and trusts.
'This beautiful book, deeply learned in the branch of jurisprudence we call equity and deeply engaged with the western literary tradition, gives new life to equity in the legal sense by connecting it with equity in the larger sense: as it is defined both in ordinary language and experience and by great writers, especially Dickens and Shakespeare. Equity Stirring transforms our sense of what equity is and can be and demonstrates in a new and graceful way the importance of connecting law with other arts of mind and language.'
James Boyd White, author of Living Speech: Resisting the Empire of Force
"this is an important, compendious, and thought-provoking work that should be on the shelves of everyone interested in equity studies."
Mark Fortier, Law and Literature
"there is much of interest to the legal historian...the book's insights and erudition did engage this rather sceptical reader, who would like to believe that equity could achieve justice, but fears rather that it can only be as fair as the court dispensing it."
Rosemary Auchmuty, The Journal of Legal History
"With luck, Equity Stirring will stir...taxonomic positivists from their culture of entitlement, waking them to the possibility that law and justice do not form the perfect quadration."
Nick Piska, Social & Legal Studies
"a highly imaginative, original and refreshing foray into the legal and ethical import of concepts too often thought to be difficult, archaic and obscure...Watt gives us a way into the subject which is forceful in its imaginative reach and its ethical import..."
David Gurnham, Law, Culture and the Humanities
Auteur
Gary Watt is a Professor of Law at the University of Warwick, and one of the General Editors of Law and Humanities. He was named UK 'Law Teacher of the Year' 2009.
Sommaire
Author’s Preface
1 Excursion
- Equitable Reading
- The Constancy of Remedial Equity
- The ‘Science’ Fiction of Law
- The Cultural Story of other Countries and other Worlds
- Law, Humanities and the Humane
- The Character of Equity
- Multiple Meanings of Equity
- Education
2 In Chancery
- Equity Captured in Chancery
- The Earl of Oxford’s Case
- In Fashion: Equity and the Problem of Precedent
- The New Life of Equity
- The Future of Chancery Language in English Law
- Bending without Breaking
- Chancery Language
- Maxims
- Chancery Doctrine
- Equitable Remedies
- Equitable Property
- Trust
- The Historical Development of the Trust
- The Metaphysical Appeal of the Trust
- Constructive Trust
- Public Example and Private Equity
- Mortgage
- Conclusion
4 Figuring Equity
- General Law as Abstract Fiction
- The Reductive Nature of Legal Abstraction
- The Merit of Metaphor
- Metaphor as Equitable Doctrine – the Example of Resulting Trust
- Metaphors of Equity
- Architectural Metaphors: Level Ground, Right Angles and the Leaden Rule
- The River of Justice
- The Scales
- The Personification of Equity
5 The Equity of Esther Summerson
- Esther and Summerson
- The Fractured Canon and the Equity of the Book of Common Prayer
- The Stereotype of Female Equity
- Motive Moderation
- Domestic Goddess
- The Close of Esther’s Narrative
6 Shakespeare’s Equity
- Shakespeare’s Legal Language
- Shakespeare and the ‘Equity’ Word
- Falstaff and Equity – a Reinterpretation
- Equity Stirring
- To Catch and Keep the Conscience of the King
- The Merchant of Venice
- Measure for Measure
- Shakespeare’s Impartiality
7 Pretence of Equity
- Outlaw Equity
- House and Homecoming Pretence of Equity
- The Future
- The Limit
Index
