In England, in late seventeenth century, writers including John Milton, John Dryden, and Aphra Behn imagined serious literature as an instrument for change. In Lines of Equity, Elliott Visconsi reveals how these writers fictionalized the original utterance of laws. more...

"The Invention of Criminal Blasphemy: Rex v. Taylor (1676)," Representations, 103 (Summer 2008)

"Measure for Measure: No Remedy," in Approaches to Teaching Law & Literature, eds. Matthew Anderson, Cathrine Frank, and Austin Sarat (New York: Modern Language Association, in press and forthcoming Fall 2008)

"Vinculum Fidei: The Tempest and the Law of Allegiance," Law & Literature 20:1 (March 2008)

"The First Amendment and the Poetics of Church and State," Raritan 26:3 (Fall 2006)

"Trojan Originalism: Dryden's Troilus & Cressida," in The Age of Projects, ed. Max Novak (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 2008)

"A Degenerate Race: English Barbarism in Behn's Oroonoko and The Widow Ranter," ELH 69:3 (2002).