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Any attempt to understand the world by means of language, in law or in literature, is an attempt to create, and impose, order on what is beyond our comprehension. However, whilst literature admits its own artificiality, law insists that it provides not only all the answers but all the right answers. Using literary examples from the Oedipus myth, through Shakespeare to modern authors such as Albert Camus and Angela Carter, Aristodemou works from the assumption that not just literature but also law are fictions, and she suggests ways in which literature can help us understand better the mythic origins of law. In doing so she shows how we can learn from the fictionality of literature new ways of addressing and living with the fictionality of law. This book is intended for second year law degree students taking an optional law and literature course.