PipesDreams

Aha! So, during Wednesday night’s class, we had further discussion on Browning’s The Ring and the Book, and thanks to some discussion surrounding the ideas of judgement, impulse, Joyce’s epiphany and sensation fiction, I think I’ve found my second thesis. , this may interest you!

Boring academic thesis

I need to keep to the topic of the course, which is the influence that the novel is exerting on narrative poetry in the Victorian age. So, the tension I’ll be looking at is the questioning of testimony, judgement and punishment that is occurring in society in the late 1800s, particularly with respect to the ongoing debate about the division of the crime of murder into first and second degrees, and questioning capital punishment and public executions. How were these subjects being worked out in different fictional forms of the time?

The novel I want to pose against The Ring and the Book is Wilkie Collins’ detective novel, told in multiple testimonial narratives, The Moonstone, which was was published in 1868 — the same year that the first two volumes of The Ring and the Book were published in London AND the same year that public executions were abolished in Britain by order of the Capital Punishment Amendment Act.

Looking at issues of judgement and legality raises a number of questions. How do the tropes of testimony effect dialogic form? What effect does procedure have on pacing in the novel as opposed to in the shape of the narrative poem? How is evidence presented? Does the sensational voice find an outlet in the poetic choral monologue, is it enhanced or subdued by the repeated presentation of the case, is it inherent in the subject matter? How is The Ring and the Book representative of trial literature and the newly-birthed genre of detective fiction, and where does it diverge (other than it’s prolixity!)?

Margaret W. Oliphant was a prolific Victorian writer who discussed sensational texts in some of her essays. A brief perusal of John Wigmore’s “List of Legal Novels” provided me with a number of titles she wrote that also involve points of law affecting the rights or the conduct of her characters: Fugitives, May, Marriage of Elinor, Harry Joscelyn, Heir Presumptive, In Trust, Madam, Sir Robert’s Fortune, and Unjust Steward. “Imagination is the first faculty wanting in those that do harm to their kind.” – M. Oliphant

I’d also like to use Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story The Copper Beeches, which opens with a discussion between Holmes and Watson regarding the nature of Watson’s recording and fictionalization of Holmes’ investigations. It is a good way to enter sensational fiction into the essay (since Holmes mentions it as a criticism and Watson defends himself against this charge), and a bridge to Book One of Browning’s work, which meditates at length about what the author brings to a factual case to grow and develop it into a work of art. From the raw material in the book of fact, through the addition of the alloy of the author’s imagination, is forged the ring of fiction.

As a lovely connection between the literary and anthropological studies that pertain to my thesis, James Joyce wrote a treatise called “Capital Punishment” that should provide me with some excellent ideas. And my old professor, W. David Shaw, in his book Victorians and Mystery: Crises of Representation, was kind enough to write a whole chapter on Collins and The Moonstone, so I’ll try to draw his thoughts into my argument as well.

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, 1868
The Ring and the Book by Robert Browning, 1868

A legal essay ‘Crime and Punishment in Robert Browning’s “The Ring and the Book”‘, by Elizabeth M. DeGroot
Philosophy of Capital Punishment

Boring academic research

Capital Punishment: Cruel & Unusual? HV8694 .C36x 2002
Capital Punishment: Current Controversies HV8699 .U5 .C2923 2000
No Equal Justice: Race & Class in the American Criminal Justice System HV9950 .C65x 1999
Criminal Justice: Opposing Viewpoints HV9950 .C7445 1998
The Death Penalty: Opposing Viewpoints HV8694 .D385 1997

Publications by Daniel Farrell, Professor at Ohio State
farrell.4@osu.edu
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Articles

“Paying the Penalty: Justifiable Civil Disobedience and the Problem of Punishment,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 6, No. 2, Winter 1977.
“Illegal Actions, Universal Maxims, and the Duty to Obey the Law: The Case for Civil Authority in the Crito,” Political Theory, Vol. 6, No. 2, May 1978.

“Freedom and Happiness in Mill’s Defense of Liberty” (with James Bogen), The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 113, October 1978. Reprinted, in translation, as “Freiheit und Gluck in Mills Pladoyer fur Freiheit,” in Der Soziale Liberalismus John Stuart Mills, ed. Gregory Claeys [Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft: Baden-Baden, 1987]

“Coercion, Consent, and the Justification of Political Power: A New Look at Locke’s Consent Claim,” Archiv fur Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie, Vol. LXV, No. 4, October 1979.

“Dealing with Injustice in a Reasonably Just Society: Rawls’ Theory of Political Duty,” Rawls’ Theory of Social Justice, ed. H.G. Blocker and Elizabeth H. Smith, Ohio University Press: Athens, Ohio, 1980.

“Jealousy,” The Philosophical Review, Vol. LXXXIX, No. 4, October 1980.

“Reason and Right in Hobbes’ Leviathan,” The History of Philosophy Quarterly, Vol. I, No. 3, July 1984. Reprinted in Essays on Early Modern Philosophers: Hobbes, ed. Vere Chappell [Garland Publishing: Hamden, Connecticut, 1995].

“The Justification of General Deterrence,” The Philosophical Review, Vol. XCIV, No. 2, July 1985. Reprinted in Punishment and Rehabilitation, 3rd ed., ed. Jeffrey Murphy [Wadsworth Publishing Company: Belmont, California, 1995] and in The International Research Library of Philosophy, ed. John M.A. Skorupski, 1992.

“Hobbes as Moralist,” Philosophical Studies, Vol. 48, No. 2, September 1985.

“Legitimate Government and Consent of the Governed,” The Restraint of Liberty, ed. Thomas Attig, Donald Callen, and John Gray, Bowling Green Studies in Applied Philosophy: Bowling Green, Ohio, 1985.

“Strategic Planning and Moral Norms: The Case of Deterrent Nuclear Threats,” Public Affairs Quarterly, Vol. I, No. 1, January 1987.

“Recent Work on the Emotions,” Analyse und Kritik, Vol. 10, No. 1, June, 1988.

“Taming Leviathan: Reflections on Some Recent Work on Hobbes”, Ethics, Vol. 98, No. 4, July 1988.

“Punishment without the State,” Nous, Vol XXII, No. 3, September 1988.

“Of Jealousy and Envy,” in Person to Person, ed. George Graham and Hugh La Follette, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989.

“Hobbes and International Relations: The War of All against All,” in The Causes of Quarrel: Constitutional Sovereignty and International Understanding, ed. Peter Caws, Boston: Beacon Press, 1989.

“On Threats and Punishments,” Social Theory and Practice, Vol. 15, No. 2, Summer 1989.

“Intention, Reason and Action,” American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 4, October 1989.

“The Justification of Deterrent Violence,” Ethics, Vol. 100, No. 2, January, 1990.

“Immoral Intentions,” Ethics, Vol. 102, No. 1, January 1992.
“On Some Alleged Paradoxes of Deterrence,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 73, 1992.

“Utility-maximizing Intentions and the Theory of Rational Choice,” Philosophical Topics, Vol. 21, No.1, Spring, 1994.

“Deterrence and the Just Distribution of Harm,” Social Philosophy and Policy, Vol. 15, No. 3, Spring, 1995.

“Deterrence, Justice and the Case for Capital Punishment,” Agora, Vol. 17, No. 2, Spring, 1995.

“A New Paradox of Deterrence,” forthcoming in Philosophical Essays in Honor of Gregory Kauka, ed. Jules Coleman and Richard Watkins, Cambridge University Press: New York, 1996.

“Jealousy and the Normativity of Desire,” forthcoming in Analytical Essays on the Concept of Love, Roger Lamb, ed., Westview Press: Boulder, Colorado, 1996.

“A New Paradox of Deterrence,” in Rational Commitment and Social Justice: Essays for Gregory Kavka, ed. Jules L. Coleman and Christopher W. Morris (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1998).

“Rationality and the Emotions” in Croatian Journal of Philosophy, (forthcoming).

There once was a boy who loved candles. He liked to burn them in his bedroom and bathroom and sometimes in the basement. Fire fascinated him, but it scared him too, and he feared to extinguish the flames in the proper manner; by wetting his thumb and forefinger and pinching the wick after blowing them out. His air-smothered candles would billow smoke into the room, darkening the air and making it reek.

This angered the powerful Candle Queen, who laid a curse on him, that all of his most precious belongings would be plagued by wax. Sure enough, the candles he had once loved for their warm glow and pure light now sputtered and spilled, dripping wax over his bookshelves, his favorite bag – he grew disenchanted with them and ceased to light them. His home descended into darkness.

But one day he met a girl, a lovely young witch who loved candles, and used them to brighten and warm every room in her home. The boy was fearful at first that his curse would strike them both, but she was always cautious to pinch every wick, and for a while they were safe. She used her razorblade witchery to carefully pare the wax from his books and his shelves. The stained rucksack she sent to the home of her mother, a magician whose great powers caused all trace of the wax soaking the fabric to disappear.

The boy was illuminated with joy, but his happiness wouldn’t last. His delicate hands still had not snuffed a single smouldering wick, and so he continued to provoke the ire of the Candle Queen: her wrath would be known to him.

The Queen arranged one final, devastating incident. After a late, late night of burning pillars on the mantle, she worked her wicked magic through the hands of the young witch, causing a hot torrent of liquid wax to cascade over the boy’s brand new, ultra-thin network-compatible Sony Playstation. Her cruelty did not extend to the controllers, which were spared by being stored safely in the cubbyholes under the television stand. But the console was covered, utterly and irretrievably coated in multiple layers of wax.

The boy lamented. “Woe! My Playstation! Alas!” No hope was in sight. But the witch-girl remained calm. “Bring me a blade,” she said, “and I will make this right.” She retreated to the confines of the bathroom, and hours passed as she worked slowly upon the wax, cajoling it away from the black plastic casing. After all the layers had been peeled back and coaxed into the garbage bin, the matte surface still had not returned – shiny blotches of residue besmirched it’s surface like scars after the pox.

The girl would not admit defeat. Her bag of tricks was limited by the delicate electrical wiring of the box; no hairdryer or ice cube magic would be brought into the fray. Instead she ran the tap, hot, hotter, hottest! Then she plunged her hand into the steaming stream, clutching a white terry cloth rag. As soon as the cloth was saturated with the boiling water, she wrung it dry and scrubbed the surface with the scorching fabric. Lo, the wax relented, releasing it’s vice-like grip on the Playstation and retreating into the towel.

The Candle Queen saw that she could not conquer the indomitable spirit of the young pair; their love for candles and for one another was too great, and her hatred ebbed away. The boy and girl were careful not to rouse her anger again, but they knew they could not be dominated by fear, and they lived happily ever after.

The end.

(ps – Yes, this is a fancy way of me saying I spilled hot wax ALL THE HELL OVER Justin’s Playstation – seriously, I really fucked that shit up – but I was able with a razorblade, persistence and patience to restore it completely to it’s pristine state, because I? Am a wax magician. So is my Mum. I wish I had a candle/wax icon right now.)