Law’s Empire Writes Back: Legal Positivism and Literary Rejoinder in Wilde’s De Profundis

Abstract

“Law’s Empire Writes Back” queries the relationships among subjectivity, agency, and liberal jurisprudence against the backdrop of Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis . Examining the trial proceedings that led to Wilde’s eventual incarceration and, arguably, demise, Dale Barleben argues that the trial apparatus, which searches for “truth,” instead manufactures guilt in many instances. Juxtaposing contemporary literary and legal scholarship with accounts of Wilde’s trials, Barleben extrapolates theories of trauma and confession, focusing on the trial as a performance in which the actors often become the characters they play. The ontological shift in Wilde’s writing before and after trial evidences the change in Wilde’s thinking about his subjectivity and identity—changes, argues Barleben, which are direct results of the traumas of trial procedure.