Unit 1 of English — Paper I (syllabus: Module I — the prescribed literary texts read for their treatment of law, trial and judgment: the courtroom of The Merchant of Venice, Bardell v. Pickwick, the trial in Adam Bede, and the justices of Joseph Andrews). Below: what the unit covers, the provisions it turns on, and the cases an examiner expects you to name.
What this unit covers
- How should a law student read a novel, and what is the one proposition the five texts test?
- Is Shylock a villain or a victim, and how do you answer that question without choosing?
- How does Portia defeat the bond, and why is it wrong to say she simply outwits Shylock?
- What does Fielding show about a country magistracy, and is he attacking the law itself?
- What does the Bardell trial teach about the difference between proof and persuasion?
- What is the theme of Bardell v. Pickwick once the comedy stops?
- Why is Hetty Sorrel's trial unbearable although nothing in it goes wrong, and what is Mr Irwine's argument?
- Why is Pudd'nhead Wilson the darkest of the five texts when nothing in its law goes wrong?
Treat that list as a self-test: recite each topic's rule from memory before you open its cases.
Provisions
- The Merchant of Venice, s. the penal bond, and Shylock's speech in Act III
- The Merchant of Venice, s. the trial scene
- Joseph Andrews, s. the stagecoach, the country justice, and the committal of Joseph and Fanny
- The Pickwick Papers, s. Bardell v. Pickwick, the trial
- The Pickwick Papers, s. the verdict, the Fleet, and the release
- Adam Bede, s. the trial of Hetty Sorrel, the verdict, and the reprieve
- Pudd'nhead Wilson, s. the exchange of the children, the trial, and the pardon