Faculty First Year Seminars 191EW2 - Maritime Law and Literature

From Apollonius' epic Argonautica to the Old English poem The Seafarer to William Shakespeare's play The Tempest to Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick, the ocean has always enjoyed a special place in literature. This course will reevaluate these nautical texts from a legal perspective. How do our readings of certain works shift when we analyze them through the prism of the laws and customs of the sea? We will ponder the question from two complementary angles. The first will treat foundational texts of maritime law, such as The Book of the Consulate of the Sea and Hugo Grotius' The Free Sea, as literature. The second will examine issues of maritime law within literary texts such as Homer's Odyssey and William Shakespeare's Pericles. Topics that we will consider include freedom of the seas, shipwreck, marine salvage, and piracy. The readings will be short but meaningful, and we will focus on close analysis during our in-class discussions.

First year (Fr or Soph)