Paper's abstract

Cyril Le Meur, Literature and Law
In France, literature and law are two academic strongholds which are not used to communicate. This is regrettable and little in keeping with the common history of the two fields. Originally in Indo-European cultures, law and literature were one and only, in the literary history of France they acted in concert during a thousand years and only split in the 19th century. The fact that literary history begins precisely at this time probably explains why it sees this divorce as very natural. Now what the diachronic inquiry so clearly shows, a scrutiny of the two poetics is evidence of: law and literature share in common a calling on the "power of language" and the production of big "illocutionary" effects. By crystallising the human experiment in writing, they order it and give it a high meaning. They both draw on the humanising function of the language.

Key Words : literature, language
t. 46, 2002 : p. 443-471

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