No concessions made? Law and justice in the epic Loher and Mailer
- The late mediaeval prose epic Loher und Muller constantly challenges a naive interpretation of what constitutes justice by confronting it over and over again with extreme cases. Generally speaking, 'poetic justice' succeeds in establishing coherence and propel the narrative forward. The constituents of societal norms and of laws are nevertheless relentlessly questioned - to such an extent that the narrative inquiry occasionally departs from the common understanding of justice. With its focus on morality, especially the presence or absence of faith, Loher und Muller is primarily concerned with the potential for conflict inherent in medieval constructions of legality and justice. In doing so, the epic opens up a narrative playground unencumbered by legal constraints as - after all - literature need not comply with medieval jurisdiction and its claims to the validity and scope of its writings. It is literature's privilege to facilitate unfamiliar ways of looking. The playful - but by no means inconsequential - casuistry played out inThe late mediaeval prose epic Loher und Muller constantly challenges a naive interpretation of what constitutes justice by confronting it over and over again with extreme cases. Generally speaking, 'poetic justice' succeeds in establishing coherence and propel the narrative forward. The constituents of societal norms and of laws are nevertheless relentlessly questioned - to such an extent that the narrative inquiry occasionally departs from the common understanding of justice. With its focus on morality, especially the presence or absence of faith, Loher und Muller is primarily concerned with the potential for conflict inherent in medieval constructions of legality and justice. In doing so, the epic opens up a narrative playground unencumbered by legal constraints as - after all - literature need not comply with medieval jurisdiction and its claims to the validity and scope of its writings. It is literature's privilege to facilitate unfamiliar ways of looking. The playful - but by no means inconsequential - casuistry played out in Loher und Maller gives rise to a 'probable' world tangential to historical reality and its understanding of justice and the law.…
