Abstract

This article deals with the contributions of American Realism to the Law & Literature movement. In light of a shared understanding of law as a cultural phenomenon set in a particular historical context, American realists were interested in considering how techniques of literary critique can help to solve problems of interpretation and to analyze examples of legal reasoning (Law as Literature). Furthermore, American realists were also engaging in studying how literary representations of the law can be helpful for the humanistic formation of lawyers (Law in Literature). The article stresses the importance of this second aspect of the Law & Literature movement, especially for Italian scholarship, give that in Italy jurists have been paying more attention to the methodological issues raised by the Law & Literature movement than to the relevance of this approach for legal education.