This book draws on works of poets as well as philosophers. Taking as a starting point Shelley’s assertion that poets are unacknowledged legislators, it suggests a way of thinking not yet taken up by those who use literary aesthetics to understand law.

Concise, original, scholarly resources evaluating the state of legal theory today. The aim of this series is to publish concise contemporary studies in legal theory which offer a rigorous and crystal-clear treatment of their subject matter as well as an original point of view, developing and challenging established lines of thought. The series has two objectives: first, to provide an authoritative and vibrant re-evaluation of the state of legal theory today, which will serve in the long term as a reputable scholarly resource; and second, to provide students with a large selection of inexpensive and accessible books appropriate to the wide variety of legal-theory courses and modules now taught in universities. For these purposes, 'legal theory' is to be conceived broadly. It covers numerous interdisciplinary approaches to law which share a significant speculative and critical component, including those which take a speculative and critical look at empirical questions (e.g. in law and economics). Books in the series may define their territory in a variety of cross-cutting ways. They may, for example, focus on a particular question or controversy, or on a particular school of thought or cultural movement, or on the foundations of a particular area of legal doctrine. The ambition is not to build up a list of mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive books, but an eclectic catalogue which highlights the diversity of issues and themes which intrigue and animate today's legal theorists, and which will be of interest to scholars and students not only in law schools but in neighbouring disciplines such as philosophy and politics. Subject to what has already been said about rigour and clarity, the series is also expected to be stylistically wide-ranging. One idiom which we aim to avoid, however, is that of the law student textbook. The series is launched with the conviction that the best secondary literature in legal theory is itself primary literature, and should be conceived by its author as a contribution to the subject's advancement rather than as a survey of the work of others.