Taking Exception to the Law explores how a range of early modern English writings responded to injustices perpetrated by legal procedures, discourses, and institutions. From canonical poems and plays to crime pamphlets and educational treatises, the essays engage with the relevance and wide appeal of legal questions in order to understand how literature operated in the early modern period.

Justice in its many forms – legal, poetic, divine, natural, and customary – is examined through insightful and innovative analyses of a number of texts, including The Merchant of Venice, The Faerie Queene, and Paradise Lost. A major contribution to the growing field of law and literature, this collection offers cultural contexts, interpretive insights, and formal implications for the entire field of English Renaissance culture.

Donald Beecher, a graduate professor in the English Department at Carleton University, assisted in the translation of The Scruffy Scoundrels. His research has revolved around scholarly editing, a way of realizing the joys and conquests that come with restoring deserved authors from the Renaissance through critical and historical editions.

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Travis DeCook is an associate professor in the Department of English at Carleton University.

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Andrew Wallace is an associate professor in the Department of English at Carleton University.

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Grant Williams is an associate professor in the Department of English at Carleton University.

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‘Highly recommended’

Choice Magazine, vol 52:12:2015

‘The editors gather an admirable selection of essays from a range of scholars….Taking Exception to the Law provokes stimulating conversation between legal and literary sources.’

Sixteenth Century Studies vol 47:02:2016

‘The volume takes its place among lively and rapidly expanding scholarship on early modern law and literature… Such a survey can do little, of course, to give a full sense of the richness of the volume but perhaps can tantalize readers with the variety of texts and breadth of concepts the authors tackle.’

Renaissance Quarterly vol 69:02:2016

‘Taking Exception to the Law certainly illuminates the networks of literary actors, both non-human and human, that exert power in early modern English law.’

English Studies in Canada vol 42:3-4:2016