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Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature

The Arrest Of Caleb Williams: Unnatural Crime, Constructive Violence, And Overwhelming Terror In Late Eighteenth-Century England, Gary Dyer Oct 2012

The Arrest Of Caleb Williams: Unnatural Crime, Constructive Violence, And Overwhelming Terror In Late Eighteenth-Century England, Gary Dyer

English Faculty Publications

In the later eighteenth century, the twelve justices of the supreme English common law courts ruled repeatedly that blackmailing a man by threatening to accuse him of sodomitical practices constituted the capital offense of robbery; the judges focused on the overwhelming terror they claimed was unique to this threat. This legal doctrine is a covert presence in William Godwin's novel Caleb Williams (1794). Ferdinando Falkland, fearing that his secret is about to be revealed by Caleb, accuses him of having 'robbed' him, and even though Falkland's secret is literally murder, the mutual persecution and mutual terrorizing that ensue evoke the …


Aeschylus’ Tragedy Of Law: Kinship, The Oresteia, And The Violence Of Democracy, Grace Hobbs May 2012

Aeschylus’ Tragedy Of Law: Kinship, The Oresteia, And The Violence Of Democracy, Grace Hobbs

English

No abstract provided.