This trail-blazing book explores previously uncharted aspects of law and literature, as well as the psychology, paradoxes and wonderful mystery of creativity. A study of artistic inspiration, Unlikely Muse examines and analyzes the lives and works of three very different writers who combine law, literature and imagination: nineteenth-century French novelist Honoré de Balzac, modernist American poet Wallace Stevens, and controversial playwright-memoirist Lillian Hellman. From the literary careers of those three writers emerge two intertwined and exciting new themes. The first theme demonstrates unexpected synergy between law and literature. Opening original lines of inquiry, Unlikely Muse probes the possible relationship between legal training and artistic creativity. A surprisingly large number of great creative artists - writers (such as Balzac), poets (such as Stevens), painters (such as Matisse) and composers (such as Tchaikovsky) - studied or practiced law. This book asks whether such people became great creative artists because of or despite their legal background. Others, such as Hellman, had no legal training but wrote much about the law. This book sketches the intellectual atmosphere and biographical background that shaped these three writers' creative process, highlighting the impact of the law on their work. The second theme uses these same three writers to focus on the changing role of imagination in literature. From Balzac through Stevens to Hellman and beyond, the author traces imagination's arc from a positive artistic quality to something that is sometimes more controversial, perhaps deceitful, and negative. In the last few decades - ever since Hellman's memoirs were attacked as untrue - journalists, memoirists and other writers have palmed off works of fiction as non-fiction, often causing literary scandals. This book offers a new theory why this phenomenon is happening and how it should be regarde
Unlikely Muse
Legal Thinking and Artistic ImaginationBy Daniel J. KornsteinAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2010 Daniel J. Kornstein
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4490-3298-2 Contents
PREFACE..................................................................................................................ixINTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................1PART I. BALZAC: DID HE KNOW MORE THAN ALL THE LAWYERS?...................................................................151. Beneath The Robe......................................................................................................172. Pegasus At The Plow...................................................................................................213. Preview Of Law In Balzac's Work.......................................................................................274. Statesmen Charged With Private Business...............................................................................335. Professional Ethics...................................................................................................516. Specific Legal Subjects...............................................................................................697. Writing Style.........................................................................................................838. Legal Philosophy......................................................................................................859. Legal Reality.........................................................................................................8910. An Ideal Intersection................................................................................................95PART II. THE DOUBLE LIFE OF WALLACE STEVENS: IS LAW SOMETIMES THE "NECESSARY ANGEL" OF CREATIVE ART?.....................10311. The Double Surprise..................................................................................................10512. Outer Shields........................................................................................................11113. Interior Made Exterior...............................................................................................11714. The Double Life Explained............................................................................................14915. The Double Life Rejected.............................................................................................17516. Strumming The Blue Guitar: Legal Thinking And Artistic Creativity....................................................18317. The Great Things In Life.............................................................................................209PART III. LILLIAN HELLMAN AND THE LAW: DID SHE INVENT WHAT SHE NEEDED?...................................................21518. A New Perspective....................................................................................................21719. The Plays: Of Lies And Law...........................................................................................22120. The Controversial Memoirs............................................................................................22921. Role Of Truth In Law.................................................................................................23122. Memoirs As An Art Form...............................................................................................23723. Truth And Lying As Hellman Themes....................................................................................24324. Her Life And The Law: Hellman vs. Mary McCarthy......................................................................24725. Other Legal Episodes.................................................................................................25526. Her Last Legal Statement.............................................................................................26327. Hellman's Uncertain Legacy: Truth And Imagination....................................................................267CONCLUSION...............................................................................................................275SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY......................................................................................................281ACKNOWLEDGMENTS..........................................................................................................291
Chapter One
Beneath The Robe
"Let's start with Balzac," the Lawyer suggests to his two drinking companions. "He is first in time, first in influence, and first in imagination. His life and work neatly knit together law, literature, and imagination."
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One of the most beautiful spots in that most beautiful city of Paris is the sculpture garden of the Rodin Museum. There, on the Rue de Varenne, on the Left Bank directly across from Napoleon's Tomb on one side and the fashionable restaurant Arpge on another, in a peaceful, park-like, outdoor setting, a lucky visitor can quietly contemplate and admire the best of Auguste Rodin's awesome sculptures. Here is the massive, intricate, fascinating Gates of Hell; there is that huge embodiment of civic devotion, The Burghers of Calais. A short stroll brings the charmed visitor to the Victor Hugo monument and to that sensuous marble tribute to love, The Kiss. And over there, atop a column, the ever-so-familiar Thinker still famously sits, chin on fist, meditating forever on who knows what.
Perhaps he is thinking about one of the other statues. For prominent among these famous works of Rodin's art is the imposing, eye-catching, mysterious, once highly controversial bronze sculpture of nineteenth-century author Honor de Balzac, a great figure in French literature and a writer of world interest. Rodin's larger-than-life statue Balzac is memorable. A glance at it reveals the sculptor's hope of conveying something of the novelist's essence, his immense creative energy and elemental life force. The statue shows a thick, heavyset, self-indulgent, introspective Balzac standing, in a simple but powerful pose, with his legs a little apart and his left arm crossed low, wearing a long dressing gown or beltless monk's robe, which falls to the floor. The massive robe, modeled on the one Balzac wore while he wrote and that entirely covers Balzac except for his head, draws the viewer's attention.
Pondering that unusual, all-encompassing robe, the somewhat puzzled and intrigued visitor understandably wonders what, if anything, is beneath it. Does it hide something? Did Rodin mean for us to think that the robe serves as the skin of Balzac's living thought and abundant creativity? In fact, Rodin draped the robe in a single piece over a free-standing, daring, phallic statue of Balzac nude, with one hand clutching his erect penis to symbolize his wondrous fertility of imagination in bringing to life a whole literary world and siring over 2000 fictional characters. Once past our understandable surprise and natural prudishness, we realize (with a smile) how profound and apt are Rodin's image, conception, and symbolism. To avoid scandal, Rodin supplied the robe, without altering what was underneath. But what lies underneath, below the surface, is important and adds meaning.
We might do well to take a hint from Rodin and look underneath the surface of Balzac's reputation. And what a reputation! Henry James, who did not dispense literary compliments...
