The Alabama Law Review has published my article "Love And Solipsism: Law And Arbitrary Rule in Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Sophocles, and Anouilh." You can read it online here. I also have extra off-prints coming to me, so if you'd like one, drop me a note.
In this article, I examine the difference between lawful rule and arbitrary rule as portrayed in the works of these famous dramatists, most notably in the Oresteia, which depicts the origin of lawful rule, and Richard III, which shows its collapse. In the Oresteia, the forces of vengeance and brutality are compelled to submit to the rule of words and persuasion; in Richard III, by contrast, the villain corrupts the world of words, denying the reality of justice and conscience, and attempting to substitute his mere will for the judgment of reason. This is ultimately futile, so Richard is eventually defeated, but his efforts demonstrate how the tyrant is a kind of solipsist, who tries to make the world obey his commands. This theme is reflected in several other of Shakespeare's works. In short, lawful rule is like love, a willing participation in a genuine union; while tyranny is like rape: compelling the victim to mimic the acts of love. But the tyrant cannot eventually succeed because the difference between rape and love, or between lawful rule and tyranny, is not some socially constructed myth. It is the product of the inalienability of the individual personality.
Meanwhile, in the Antigones of Sophocles and Anouilh, we see how the civil disobedient is the lone spokesman (or rather, spokeswoman) for reality, who refuses to participate in the ruler's preferred fiction. Yet Anouilh's version of the myth, informed by the rise of totalitarianism, reflects a very different notion of the possibility of vindicating justice.
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