This is a recording of a March 24, 2025 CNLH sponsored lecture with Professor Gary Watt.

Talk Description

“This presentation argues that legal vernacular appealed to Shakespeare and his contemporary playwrights not only because it spoke to playgoers’ quotidian and professional experiences of law, but also because legal speech is inherently resonant with performative power. With examples from plays including As You Like It, The Winter’s Tale, and Hamlet, this presentation will show that the poetic power of legal speech extends beyond the evocative incantation of law’s set phrases (eg; “to have and to hold”, “be it known unto all men by these presents”) into sound effects secreted within individual legal words.”