Feelings! I have no time or occasion left for such things. literature
I spend my life, miss, turning the handle that sets in motion a huge money-ironing machine.
Charles Dickens; A Tale of Two Cities (translated by Salvador Bordoy Luque)
The Enlightenment and the French Revolution
The Enlightenment, with its focus on reason and progress, was the driving force behind the French Revolution. A milestone that led to the fall of royal rights and the birth of new human rights. This event marked the end of monarchical absolutism and the emergence of a new legal vision, based on liberty, equality and fraternity. It also influenced international law, with the appearance of Civil Codes, such as the Napoleonic Code, which unified, modernized and served as a model for other nations.
The Gatopardo and Italian Unification
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s The Leopard narrates the transition from a rural and feudal society to a bourgeois and urban one. It reflects the social change in Italy after unification. It crystallizes how the old aristocratic privileges were displaced by a new urban and capitalist class. Here, law begins to adapt to this new reality, where the old titles of nobility are replaced by the power of money and property.
The Buddenbrooks and German Unification
The Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann, set in the context of German unification. It reflects the rise and fall of a merchant family. The work highlights how commercial law, inheritance law and contractual relations play a crucial role in the stability or ruin of bourgeois families. In this novel, the transition of wealth from one generation to the next is mediated by the law. in addition, inheritance disputes and debts form a central part of the plot.
The Great Gatsby and American Capitalism
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, set in the “Roaring Twenties” in the United States, the accumulation of wealth through legal and illegal means is explored. The protagonist builds his fortune by taking advantage of Prohibition. Meanwhile, commercial law and liability play a central role in the plot, especially in the denouement. This novel reveals how laws protect the powerful and how the legal system can be manipulated to maintain inequalities.
Moby Dick and Maritime Law
In Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, legal issues related to maritime law are raised. In one notable episode maritime legal rules and interpretations of laws play an essential role. This conflict is used to explore the limits of law and justice in an environment of high uncertainty and danger.
Bartleby, the Scribe and Wage Labor
In Bartleby, the Scribe, Melville analyzes wage labor and working conditions in the incipient capitalist system. The character of Bartleby, who refuses to do his work, exposes the ethical and legal dilemmas of labor in a society where the individual becomes just another cog in the productive machine.
The bourgeois class and decolonization
The independence of Latin America and the emergence of new states in the 19th century brought about a major legal transformation. Decolonization also implied the creation of new legal systems that broke with the colonial past. Tensions between property rights, resource exploitation and demands for social justice are recurring themes in the literature of the period.
La Febre d’Or and The Wealth of Nations
Narcís Oller’s La febre d’Or reflects the rise of the Catalan bourgeoisie and its participation in financial speculation, a phenomenon exacerbated by the ideas of economic liberalism and the quest for the accumulation of wealth.
The City of Prodigies and Social Conflict
Eduardo Mendoza’s La ciudad de los prodigios tells the story of the explosion of social tensions in Barcelona at the end of the 19th century, between anarchism and the capitalist bourgeoisie. The literature reflects how law is used by the ruling class to protect its interests. Mendoza describes how laws can be used as tools of control and repression.
Conclusion
The literature of the 19th and 20th centuries clearly reflects the great economic, social and political changes that transformed the law. Through the works we can observe how law adapts to the new realities. These texts also offer a profound critique of justice, social inequalities and the use of economic power to shape laws in favor of the few.
The dialogue between literature and law offers us a window to understand how legal norms evolve along with social and economic tensions. Want to know more?
