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Cardozo’s Literary Precedents
Meyler, Bernadette
Meyler, Bernadette
Abstract
Benjamin Cardozo penned his essay “Law and Literature” long before the field of law and literature took off in the 1970s.1 The piece, which furnishes a typology of judicial styles, has become a classic early example of engagement with the intersection of the two areas.2 “Law and Literature” fits squarely within what is now called the genre of “law as literature,” considering the literary attributes of legal writing.3 Reading it, one might never imagine that Cardozo had also considered works of fiction in depth. Indeed, few know of his early study of literature, including his heretofore unpublished undergraduate paper on novelist George Eliot.4 Although this earlier work does not touch on law explicitly, it demonstrates the emergence of Cardozo’s concerns with duty, causation, and responsibility even before he became a judge, presaging the account of morality furnished in The Nature of the Judicial Process. It also helps to flesh out the reasons why, as he claims in “Law and Literature,” style is so significant.