INADMISSIBLE EVIDENCE: THE TRIAL OF MADELEINE SMITH AND COLLINS'S THE LAW AND THE LADY. Issue 1 (28th January 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Murphy, Sara
• Is Part Of: Victorian literature and culture. Volume 44:Issue 1(2016)
• Page Start: 163
• Page End: 188
• Publication Date: 2016-01-28
• Subjects: English literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Arts, Victorian -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Great Britain -- Civilization -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Criticism and interpretation -- Periodicals; Criticism and interpretation -- Periodicals; 820.8
• DOI: 10.1017/S1060150315000479
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1060-1503

Abstract

Abstract : "A trial and a literary text, " Shoshana Felman once noted, "do not aim at the same kind of conclusion, nor do they strive toward the same kind of effect. A trial is presumed to be a search for truth, but technically it is a search for a decision; and thus. . . it seeks not truth but finality: a force of resolution." Literature, on the other hand, Felman posits, is characterized by "a search for meaning. . . for heightened significance, for symbolic understanding" (Felman 55). Trials function to curb the proliferation of meanings in favor of finality, if not absolute truth, whereas literature allegedly forgoes such determinacy. A corollary of this distinction has to do with language itself: while law seeks to fix linguistic meaning, literature draws attention to the inherent instability of meaning.