Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life [Paperback]

Martha C. Nussbaum (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0807041092 | ISBN-13: 978-0807041093 | Publication Date: April 30, 1997

In Poetic Justice, one of our most prominent philosophers explores how the literary imagination is an essential ingredient of just public discourse and a democratic society.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Nussbaum (ethics, Univ. of Chicago) describes the social purposes of the realistic novel, using concepts of empathy and identification to explain the worlds of Hard Times, Native Son, and Maurice. She writes out of the multicultural, feminist, and liberal traditions and calls for a value-based judgment of economic and social development. Nussbaum works through a theory of private emotions, showing how they pertain to and influence public actions. The heart of her inquiry concerns the use of literary feelings and techniques to enlighten and inform legal reasoning. She considers questions of race, class, and gender as important aspects of public policy. This would make a fine selection for this election season. Recommended for public and academic libraries.?Gene Shaw, NYPL
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Timely and urgent. . . . Ms. Nussbaum's appeal to the outlook of fiction as a model for judicial and social policy is bracingly utopian and immensely heartening. --Morris Dickstein, The New York Times Book Review

"No one has made a better case for the importance of literary and humanistic education to the public life of the nation. Martha Nussbaum's new book should be required reading for every member of Congress." --Stanley Fish, author of Professional Correctness: Literary Studies and Political Change

"Nussbaum argues elegantly that the novel, by engaging our sympathy in the contemplation of lives different from ours, expands our imaginative capabilities so we may better make those judgments that public life demands of us. . . . Nussbaum's thesis . . . deserves to be shouted from the rooftops-like Whitman's Song of Myself." --Kirkus Reviews

"Nussbaum fascinatingly argues that the so-called 'reasoning mind' has blinded us from that all-too-obvious aspect of being a human animal-our emotions." --Raul Nino, New City

"Nussbaum is one of our profound contemporary thinkers. . . . We do not know whether or not reading novels really does make people more humane [but] here is the strongest argument yet published." --Keith Oatley, Toronto, Ontario Globe & Mail

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Beacon Press (April 30, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807041092
• ISBN-13: 978-0807041093
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #248,004 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Martha C. Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, appointed in Law, Philosophy, and Divinity.

Author photo by Robin Holland

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The relevance of literature, November 7, 2001

By 

John H. Teeple "Magical Boy" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life (Paperback)

I read this book alongside Rorty's "Achieving Our Country." Both are concerned with similar themes; I was interested especially in how both authors addressed the relevance of literature in shaping our moral and political beliefs. But whereas Rorty's consideration of the moral value of literature is limited to a contrast with deconstructive approaches to literature, Nussbaum takes a more detailed approach. Using concrete studies of both works of fiction (Richard Wright's "Native Son" and several works by Dickens are featured prominently) and legal cases to reveal how a sense of the particular is developed and maintained through the reading of fiction, and may be applied to moral and judicial reasoning. Being attuned to particulars, she argues, allows for sympathetic identification (with characters in novels, and with defendants in trials), and thus a sense of compassion and mercy. This short, easy to read book is, I think, a good introduction to her work on both law and literature (subjects she teaches on at Chicago) -- the relation between which is developed further, in greater detail, in both "Love's Knowledge" and "Sex and Social Justice."