Dark Mirror by Richard C. Sterne PAPERBACK 9780823215102

Dark MirrorThe Sense of Injustice in Modern European and American Literature\nAuthor(s): Richard C. Sterne\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Fordham University Press, United States\nImprint: Fordham University Press\nISBN-13: 9780823215102, 978-0823215102\nSynopsis\nFocusing on European and American trial fiction since about 1880, Dark Mirror argues that although it is generally animated by a sense of injustice, this literature reflects the virtual collapse in Western culture of the idea of a universal, or \""natural,\"" ethical law. From the ancient Greeks to the Victorians, that idea, though powerfully contested by the notion that justice was simply \""the interest of the stronger,\"" remained vigorously alive in books as in people's minds. It thus constituted an alternative to injustice which modern literature, whether its angle is religious, social, or absurdist, rarely presents. \n Sterne presents the argument that the tradition of natural law can be adapted to the present condition, a.