Literature and the Law of Nations, 1580-1680

Literature and the Law of Nations, 1580-1680 is a literary history of international law in the age of Shakespeare, Milton, Grotius, and Hobbes. Seeking to revise the ways scholars understand early modern English literature in relation to the history of international law, it argues that scholars of law and literature have tacitly accepted specious but politically consequential assumptions about whether international law is "real" law. Literature and the Law of Nations shows how major writers of the English Renaissance deployed genres like epic, tragedy, comedy, tragicomedy, and history to solidify the canonical subjects and objects of modern international law. By demonstrating how Renaissance literary genres informed modern categories like public international law, private international law, international legal personality, and human rights, the book over its seven chapters and conclusion helps early modern literary scholars think anew about the legal entailments of genre and scholars in law and literature long accustomed to treating all law with a single broad brush better confront the distinct complexities, fault lines, and variegated histories at the heart of international law.

Christopher N. Warren, Assistant Professor of English, Carnegie Mellon University

Christopher N. Warren is an Assistant Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, where he teaches courses on law, literature, and the humanities. Warren's scholarship has appeared in English Literary Renaissance, The Seventeenth Century, and the European Journal of International Law. Prior to Carnegie Mellon, Warren trained at the University of Oxford before a receiving a Harper-Schmidt fellowship in the University of Chicago's Society of Fellows.

The Stakes of International Law and Literature
From Epic to Public International Law: Philip Sidney, Alberico Gentili, and "Intercourse Among Enemies"
Jacobean Comedy and the Anagnorisis of Private International Law
The Tragicomic Law of Nations: The Winter's Tale and the Union
From Imperial History to International Law: Thucydides, Hobbes, and the Law of Nations
From Biblical Tragedy to Human Rights: International Legal Personality in Grotius' Sophompaneas and Milton's Samson Agonistes
"A Problem from Hell": From Paradise Lost to the Responsibility to Protect
Conclusion
Bibliography