Riding the Black Ram

Law, Literature, and Gender

Susan Heinzelman

• Publisher: Stanford Law Books
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780804756808
• eBook ISBN: 9780804773683
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Gender & The Law
• Index: Law

Unruly women are not often represented in a good light. Whether historical, or fictional, disruptive women with their real or imagined excesses have long provided the material for literary and legal narratives. This probing new work analyzes a series of literary, legal, and historical texts to demonstrate the persistence of certain gender stereotypes.

In her 1820 adultery trial, Queen Caroline was depicted in a cartoon riding into the House of Lords on a black ram that had the face of her Italian lover. As this book reveals, a number of women, remembered largely for their insubordinate presence, have metaphorically "ridden the black ram" in the last 700 years. Heinzelman's historicized understanding of the relationship between law and literature reveals a disquieting pattern in the legal and literary representations of women and provides a new recognition of the significance of sexuality and gender in the way we narrate our world.

Table of contents

• THE CULTURAL LIVES OF LAW
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• CHAPTER ONE - “Termes Queinte of Lawe” and Quaint Fantasies of Literature
• CHAPTER TWO - Public Affairs and Juridical Intimacies
• CHAPTER THREE - Black Letters and Black Rams Law, Gender, and the Novel in Early Eighteenth-Century England
• CHAPTER FOUR - How to Tell a Story That Might Prevent a Hanging
• CHAPTER FIVE - Statues, Statutes, and Queens on Trial
• Postscript
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• THE CULTURAL LIVES OF LAW