On Trial

George Anastaplo, author of numerous books, teaches at the University of Chicago, Loyola University, and Dominican University.

In this volume, as in many others that he has written, George Anastaplo does what readers familiar with him take for granted, knowing how often he has done it and forgetting what a rare thing it is. Who else would discuss the trials of great figures in literature an history—as if they were, or had been, equally real, and subject them to a critical examination which assumes that the issues raised by them had not only been out common business as human beings to confront from the beginning, but still are? That is what Mr. Anastaplo does here, with a seriousness that challenges the intellect and imagination we all possess, and will not allow us to claim either the poet's license or the vanished past as reasons to escpe the task of unerstanding, the risk of judgment's call.

• Chapter 1 From Adam & Eve to FaustusChapter 2 Clytemnestra, Electra, and OrestesChapter 3 Jonah and the NinevitesChapter 4 Oedipus, Creon, and AntigoneChapter 5 Abraham and KierkegaardChapter 6 Socrates of AthensChapter 7 Jesus of NazarethChapter 8 Joan of ArcChapter 9 Shylock and ShakespeareChapter 10 Thomsa More, the King, and the PopeChapter 11 John P. Altegeld and the HaymarketersChapter 12 Notorious Defendants in Our TimeChapter 13 From Spiro T. Agnew to O. J. Simpson