Law and Literature episode 2. From the Renaissance to the Nineteenth Century

Podcast two The second Law and Literature podcast deals with the period from The Renaissance to the Nineteenth Century dealing with the obvious and continued relevance of Shakespeare not least in Measure for Measure (1604) and Francis Bacon his contemporary who may or may not have been Shakespeare. A crucial motif in the podcast is that Shakespeare and Cervantes died on the same day, and Don Quixote (1605-1615) is one of the great novels about the law. The central part of the podcast deals with The Irishman Jonathan Swift not least in describing Yahoos (humans) in Gulliver’s Travels (1726) to the enlightened horses the full force of his contempt cane down on lawyers and A Modest Proposal (1729) the greatest essay in the English language has the capacity in the Ireland today of pervasive inequality, unaffordable housing controlled by a landlord class to put a shiver down ones spine. Swift is discussed with his contemporaries Dr Johnson who had a cynical view of lawyers and Alexander Pope. The podcast ends with Voltaire the supreme creator of enlightenment values and campaigner against miscarriages not least in The Calais case and those values worldwide are the values we are losing or have lost.