American Epic: Reading the U.S. Constitution - Hardcover

Epps, Garrett

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199974748 ISBN 13: 9780199974740

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2013

Synopsis

In 1987, E.L. Doctorow celebrated the Constitution's bicentennial by reading it. "It is five thousand words long but reads like fifty thousand," he said. Distinguished legal scholar Garrett Epps--himself an award-winning novelist--disagrees. It's about 7,500 words. And Doctorow "missed a good deal of high rhetoric, many literary tropes, and even a trace of, if not wit, at least irony," he writes. Americans may venerate the Constitution, "but all too seldom is it read."

In American Epic, Epps takes us through a complete reading of the Constitution--even the "boring" parts--to achieve an appreciation of its power and a holistic understanding of what it says. In this book he seeks not to provide a definitive interpretation, but to listen to the language and ponder its meaning. He draws on four modes of reading: scriptural, legal, lyric, and epic. The Constitution's first three words, for example, sound spiritual--but Epps finds them to be more aspirational than prayer-like. "Prayers are addressed to someone . . . either an earthly king or a divine lord, and great care is taken to name the addressee. . . . This does the reverse. The speaker is 'the people,' the words addressed to the world at large." He turns the Second Amendment into a poem to illuminate its ambiguity. He notices oddities and omissions. The Constitution lays out rules for presidential appointment of officers, for example, but not removal. Should the Senate approve each firing? Can it withdraw its "advice and consent" and force a resignation? And he challenges himself, as seen in his surprising discussion of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in light of Article 4, which orders states to give "full faith and credit" to the acts of other states.

Wry, original, and surprising, American Epic is a scholarly and literary tour de force.

About this title

About the Author

Garrett Epps is Professor of Law at the University of Baltimore Law School. A former staff writer for the Washington Post, he has written for the New York Times, New Republic, The New York Review of Books, and the Atlantic. Two of his nonfiction books, Democracy Reborn and To An Unknown God, have been finalists for the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award. One of his two novels, The Shad Treatment, won the Lillian Smith Book Award.

From the Inside Flap

Americans may venerate the Constitution, but all too seldom do they read it. In American Epic, distinguished legal scholar and award-winning novelist Garrett Epps takes us through a complete reading of the Constitution--even the "boring" parts--to achieve an appreciation of its power and a holistic understanding of what it says. He seeks not to provide a definitive interpretation, but to listen to the language and ponder its meaning as revealed through its use of high rhetoric, literary tropes, and even occasional irony. Drawing on literary traditions from the Bible and Homer to Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, he outlines four modes of reading: scriptural, legal, lyric, and epic. For instance, the Constitution's famous first three words, "We the people", may sound spiritual, but Epps finds them to be more aspirational in their attempt to define the speaker to the world. He turns the Second Amendment into a poem to illuminate its ambiguity. He notices oddities and omissions. The Constitution lays out rules for presidential appointment of officers, for example, but not removal. Should the Senate approve each firing? Can it withdraw its "advice and consent" and force a resignation? And he challenges his own interpretations, as seen in his surprising discussion of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in light of Article 4, which orders states to give "full faith and credit" to the acts of other states. Wry, original, and surprising, American Epic is a scholarly and literary

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0199974748
• ISBN 13: 9780199974740
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 274