Criminal Conversations: Sentimentality and Nineteenth-Century Legal Stories of Adultery / Edition 1

by Laura Hanft Korobkin

Overview

Storytelling is an essential aspect of any legal case. But what kinds of stories win cases, and why? Criminal Conversations explores sentimentality as both a literary genre and a rhetorical strategy in the novels and courtrooms of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America. By focusing on "criminal conversation"—the civil tort whereby a cuckold sues his wife's lover to for damages to his property rights from the adultery—Korobkin argues that literary discourse, used in the courtroom, affects the outcomes of legal cases. She shows how lawyers used sentimentality strategically to guide juries in reaching verdicts, and how appellate courts appropriated the rhetoric, plots, and characters of sentimental fiction to redefine husbands' and wives' marital obligations.Criminal Conversations begins by tracking the legal fictions that were part of the civil tort of adultery from its origins in the English Renaissance. Korobkin then examines in detail the final arguments at Henry Ward Beecher's sensational criminal conversation trial of 1874-1875. The final part of the book takes up a series of appellate decisions that decided whether women could bring criminal conversation cases against their husbands' female lovers. Drawing on court documents, as well as literary examples from E.D.E.N. Southworth, Mark Twain, T. S. Arthur, and others, Korobkin explores the intersections of gender, genre, law, and story, revealing the ways in which the courtroom became a site of empowerment for women around the turn of the century. A major contribution to our understanding of the legal power of literary stories and styles, Criminal Conversations will be of interest to students of law, literature, rhetoric, and women's studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231105095
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	01/11/1999
Series:	The Social Foundations of Aesthetic Forms
Edition description:	CASEBOOK E
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.04(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.53(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Laura Hanft Korobkin is assistant professor of English at Boston University.

Table of Contents

Introduction and Historical Foundation
Prologue: Telling Stories in the Courtroom
Criminal Conversation and the Conversational Process of the Law
The Transformative Magic of Legal Fictions: The Suppression of Sex in Early English Civil Adultery Cases
Theodore Tilton v. Henry Ward Beecher: Criminal Conversation, 1875
Prologue: Crisis of Confidence in the Courtroom
The Maintenance of Mutual Confidence: Sentimental Strategies at the Beecher-Tilton Trial
Silent Woman, Speaking Fiction: The "ministry of Catherine Gaunt" at the Beecher-Tilton Trial
Female-Plaintiff Criminal Conversation Cases: Rewriting the Law's Story of Marriage
Prologue: Four Cases
Rethinking the Law's Story of Marriage: The Bonds of Sentiment
Consequences of Change: The Sexually Passive Husband and the Erotically Autonomous Wife

What People are Saying About This

Martha Minow

An instructive, provocative and engaging work that grounds the field of law and literature firmly in textured stories, lived, told and ordered.

— Martha Minow, Harvard University

Sarcan Bercovitch

A landmark contribution to literary and cultural studies.

Nancy Glazener

A fascinating study, equally sensitive to the precise turnings of legal history and to the nuances of narrativity.

— Nancy Glazener, author of Reading for Realism: The History of a U.S. Literary Institution, 1850-1910

Sacvan Bercovitch

This book is a landmark contribution to literary and cultural studies.... a powerful and original perspective both on the legal mechanisms of American Victorian society and on the profession of letters during this period.... I predict [it] will have a strong impact on the entire field of American studies.

— Sacvan Bercovitch, Harvard University

Nancy Armstrong

What could be more timely in this age of legal spectacle than an historical study of the narrative performance, or sentimental conversation, that has been part and parcel of the American system of justice for almost two centuries? Korobkin's book deftly brings that tradition to bear on sentimental fiction and vise versa, illuminating the difficulty of a sustaining and sustainable feminism in a culture where victims have always had such a powerful rhetorical edge.

— Nancy Armstrong, Brown University

Editorial Reviews

Recommended... for its impressive clarity, incisive analysis, mastery of sources, and timeliness.

Choice - E. Nettels

In the course of this interesting mix of methodologies and historical time periods, Korobkin makes fascinating suggestions about the impacts of women's sentimental (domestic) fiction on popular and legal rhetoric of the time.

College English

Recommended... for its impressive clarity, incisive analysis, mastery of sources, and timeliness.

— E. Nettels, College of William and Mary

Choice

An instructive, provocative and engaging work that grounds the field of law and literature firmly in textured stories, lived, told and ordered.

Martha Minow

This book is a landmark contribution to literary and cultural studies. . . . a powerful and original perspective both on the legal mechanisms of American Victorian society and on the profession of letters during this period. . . . I predict [it] will have a strong impact on the entire field of American studies.

Sacvan Bercovitch

What could be more timely in this age of legal spectacle than an historical study of the narrative performance, or sentimental conversation, that has been part and parcel of the American system of justice for almost two centuries? Korobkin´s book deftly brings that tradition to bear on sentimental fiction and vise versa, illuminating the difficulty of a sustaining and sustainable feminism in a culture where victims have always had such a powerful rhetorical edge.

Nancy Armstrong

A fascinating study, equally sensitive to the precise turnings of legal history and to the nuances of narrativity.

Nancy Glazener

Recommended . . . for its impressive clarity, incisive analysis, mastery of sources, and timeliness.

E. Nettels

Focuses on cases of adultery in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in America, looking at how women operated as subjects in American law, how gender-inflicted literary logic controlled cases' outcome, and whether and to what extent American courtrooms became sites of empowerment for women during this period. Part I provides historical background, Part II details a case from 1875, and Part III examines state appellate court decisions on whether women could be plaintiffs in criminal conversation and in alienation of affection cases. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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