Provides the full court transcript of the evening, in 1994, when a panel of three judges and The Association of the Bar of the City of New York heard an appeal in regard to Hamlet, the late Prince of Denmark and famous Shakespearean character.

The Elsinore Appeal: People V. Hamlet

Literature & Fiction

Kornstein, Daniel J.

Gillers, Stephen

Frankel, Marvin E.

Shakespeare., William

Greene, Norman L.

Roberts, Jeanne A.

Association of the Bar of the City of New York

British & Irish

St Martins Pr

Tells the stories of ten influential American lawyers, including Andrew Hamilton, John Adams, Daniel Webster, Clarence Darrow, Louis Brandeis, and Thurgood Marshall

Thinking Under Fire: Great Courtroom Lawyers and Their Impact on American History

Biographies & Memoirs

Professionals & Academics

Dodd, Mead

How many lawyers does it take to screw in a light bulb? Depends; how many can you afford? The popular image of lawyers is taking a beating. Ironically, at a time when more people than ever hire lawyers, few want to defend them. Daniel Kornstein, a practicing attorney, finds in Shakespeare's drama the way toward a new respect for the profession and its place in contemporary society.
 It is no wonder that lawyers and judges quote the Bard more than any other single source. Two-thirds of Shakespeare's plays have trial scenes; many deal specifically with points of law and lawyers. The Elizabethan age seems as litigious as our own. Inspired by numerous performances of Shakespeare, Kornstein considers how legal themes relate to contemporary issues. Of Measure for Measure Kornstein points out, "Then, as now, we have thought about how much public support and respect law needs, whether or not to enforce dead letter statutes, and if it is better to interpret laws strictly or equitably. Then, as now, all of us have considered the effect of power on human nature, how judges may be corrupt, and how important mercy is."
 By discussing the plays in light of contemporary legal cases, Kornstein provokes thought about how law and civil justice are woven into modern society, just as they are on Shakespeare's stage. In Shakespeare, as in no other playwright, law, civil society, and humanity unite with dramatic and rhetorical brilliance. Kornstein shows how our reacquaintance with the master playwright may kindle our enthusiasm for law in our age. His objective, as a lawyer and playgoer, is to make the connections between law and literature, between the challenges of daily legal practice and the pleasures of art.

Kill All the Lawyers? Shakespeare's Legal Appeal

Princeton University Press

Partial Verdicts: Essays on Law and Life

In these illuminating and often eloquent essays, a practicing lawyer with almost thirty-five years of experience explores various aspects of his profession. But this book is not for lawyers only. It does for law what Lewis Thomas's Lives of a Cell did for biology. It uses a particular discipline as a springboard for provocative and entertaining musings of a general nature. Rather than narrow, technical discussions, these delightfully written essays are a free play of the imagination - by turns serious, whimsical, meditative, witty - that allows our minds to dance with ideas about law and its links with many other subjects. Kornstein's four previous books have drawn warm praise. The Wall Street Journal called one "a book that deftly and lovingly discusses the law and those who build their careers on it." "Thorough and lucid," said the Times Literary Supplement of another. The Journal of Legal History described how the author's "enthusiasm positively leaps from the page." According to Choice, Kornstein's influential book about Shakespeare and the law (Kill All the Lawyers?) "stands as a testimonial to cultural literacy at its best. To have a [book] as carefully researched and gracefully written as this emerge from a literate lawyer's pen is modestly reassuring about the future of culture itself." Daniel J. Kornstein is a founding partner of Kornstein Veisz Wexler & Pollard, LLP, a law firm in New York City. In addition to a busy law practice, he writes frequently on law-related topics with, according to the Yale Journal of Law and Humanities, "the distinctive voice of an American lawyer [who] speaks to our era in the polished cadences of an experienced advocate."

AuthorHouse

Unlikely Muse: Legal Thinking and Artistic Imagination

This trail-blazing book explores previously uncharted aspects of law and literature, as well as the psychology, paradoxes and wonderful mystery of creativity. A study of artistic inspiration, Unlikely Muse examines and analyzes the lives and works of three very different writers who combine law, literature and imagination: nineteenth-century French novelist Honoré de Balzac, modernist American poet Wallace Stevens, and controversial playwright-memoirist Lillian Hellman. From the literary careers of those three writers emerge two intertwined and exciting new themes. The first theme demonstrates unexpected synergy between law and literature. Opening original lines of inquiry, Unlikely Muse probes the possible relationship between legal training and artistic creativity. A surprisingly large number of great creative artists - writers (such as Balzac), poets (such as Stevens), painters (such as Matisse) and composers (such as Tchaikovsky) - studied or practiced law. This book asks whether such people became great creative artists because of or despite their legal background. Others, such as Hellman, had no legal training but wrote much about the law. This book sketches the intellectual atmosphere and biographical background that shaped these three writers' creative process, highlighting the impact of the law on their work. The second theme uses these same three writers to focus on the changing role of imagination in literature. From Balzac through Stevens to Hellman and beyond, the author traces imagination's arc from a positive artistic quality to something that is sometimes more controversial, perhaps deceitful, and negative. In the last few decades - ever since Hellman's memoirs were attacked as untrue - journalists, memoirists and other writers have palmed off works of fiction as non-fiction, often causing literary scandals. This book offers a new theory why this phenomenon is happening and how it should be regarded.

This trail-blazing book explores previously uncharted aspects of law and literature, as well as the psychology, paradoxes and wonderful mystery of creativity. A study of artistic inspiration, Unlikely Muse examines and analyzes the lives and works of three very different writers who combine law, literature and imagination: nineteenth-century French novelist Honoré de Balzac, modernist American poet Wallace Stevens, and controversial playwright-memoirist Lillian Hellman. From the literary careers of those three writers emerge two intertwined and exciting new themes. The first theme demonstrates unexpected synergy between law and literature. Opening original lines of inquiry, Unlikely Muse probes the possible relationship between legal training and artistic creativity. A surprisingly large number of great creative artists - writers (such as Balzac), poets (such as Stevens), painters (such as Matisse) and composers (such as Tchaikovsky) - studied or practiced law. This book asks whether such people became great creative artists because of or despite their legal background. Others, such as Hellman, had no legal training but wrote much about the law. This book sketches the intellectual atmosphere and biographical background that shaped these three writers' creative process, highlighting the impact of the law on their work. The second theme uses these same three writers to focus on the changing role of imagination in literature. From Balzac through Stevens to Hellman and beyond, the author traces imagination's arc from a positive artistic quality to something that is sometimes more controversial, perhaps deceitful, and negative. In the last few decades - ever since Hellman's memoirs were attacked as untrue - journalists, memoirists and other writers have palmed off works of fiction as non-fiction, often causing literary scandals. This book offers a new theory why this phenomenon is happening and how it should be regarde

Something Else: More Shakespeare and the Law

Something Else is a sequel to Daniel J. Kornstein's classic 1994 study of Shakespeare and the law Kill All the Lawyers? The author found he had more - something else - to say on the subject. Written in the same crisp, lucid, and witty style as his previous critically acclaimed and highly influential book on Shakespeare, Kornstein's new book continues his illuminating, original, and entertaining explorations of the Bard and the law. In Something Else Kornstein probes new Shakespeare territory with insight and eloquence, but without academic. He analyzes from a fresh perspective, and devastatingly picks apart, Mark Twain's "evidence" that Shakespeare could not have written the plays because he was not a lawyer. Kornstein submits for the reader's verdict moot court briefs based on Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice. A timely chapter on Coriolanus shows how that rarely performed play explains much about democracy and elections in America. The author's discussion of Henry V and the law of war will rivet everyone's attention with its relevance to recent history and current events. Other chapters look at why Shakespeare never mentions Magna Carta in King John, comment on the many crooked judges in Shakespeare's plays, untangles The Comedy of Errors, tries to solve the mystery of Richard III and the princes in the Tower. In a whimsical final chapter, the author imagines a conversation

Contemporary

Loose Sallies is a new collection of essays from an experienced writer who also happens to be a full time practicing lawyer. In this stimulating and provocative volume, Daniel J. Kornstein turns his searching eye and fluent pen to a number of topics of interest to all of us. The first group of essays contains Kornstein's original thoughts on the drafting of the U.S. Constitution, a subject that affects us every day. Next he explores the most treasured part of our Constitution: our precious civil liberties. From there the author describes some interesting personalities and their lives. The final section is a miscellany of essays on subjects as varied as: the similarities between politics and litigation, whether private schools should be abolished, Bill Clinton and the draft, anti semitism in New York and London, and Steve Jobs and Ayn Rand. All in all, Loose Sallies is a virtuoso performance, a tour de force, by one of our finest essayists.

Loose Sallies Essays

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kornstein, Daniel J.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Kornstein, Daniel J.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kornstein, Daniel J.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Elsinore Appeal: People V. Hamlet

Thinking Under Fire: Great Courtroom Lawyers and Their Impact on American History

Kill All the Lawyers? Shakespeare's Legal Appeal

Partial Verdicts: Essays on Law and Life

Partial Verdicts: Essays on Law and Life

Unlikely Muse: Legal Thinking and Artistic Imagination

Unlikely Muse: Legal Thinking and Artistic Imagination

Something Else: More Shakespeare and the Law

Something Else: More Shakespeare and the Law

Loose Sallies Essays