Between authority and (in)authenticity: How literary canons shaped jus gentium

Abstract

AbstractIn this article, I will show how literary imitation qualifies as a specific mode of transmission of jus gentium texts and ideas. Focusing on this specific angle allows us to see how Gentili and Grotius were not just literary erudites, using poetic references to craft their own international legal arguments; they professionalized the use of literary canons in such a way that they became constitutive of jus gentium as a discipline. Canonical references were transmitted through marginalia, the printed annotations we find abundantly in the margins of their texts, and that constituted for at least two centuries the argumentative structure of how jus gentium was written. Thus, a parallel legal history unfolds between the lines of marginalia, a story made of textual interpretations, omissions, and intentional interpolations. I will offer a concrete example of this textual machinery at play, namely Gentili’s and Grotius’ discussion of the same passage from Virgil’s Aeneid. The passage in question, known by literary historians as the ‘Helen episode’, is a case of contested Virgilian authority. The ‘Helen episode’, regardless of its textual reliability, is used by Gentili and Grotius to make a specific claim: that women cannot legally qualify as enemies under the law of nations. Such a story is particularly revealing, as it allows us to acknowledge the jurisgenetic role of literary canons, as well as their powerful role in the production of arguments of order that became constitutive of international law.