¹ Matias Martinez & Michael Scheffel, Einführung in die Erzähltheorie 138 (7th ed. 2007) (“Das Gemeinsame und Übertragbare von Geschichten ist nicht die Art und Weise der Darstellung in ihren sprachlichen und erzählerischen Modalitäten, sondern die Abfolge von Ereignissen und Aktionen, die auf der Handlungsebene eine autonome Sinnstruktur ergeben.”).Google Scholar

² The Declaration of Independence para. 2 (U.S. 1776).Google Scholar

³ On the relevance of the Declaration for the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, see Orgad, Liav, The Preamble in Constitutional Interpretation, 8 Int'l J. Const. L. 714, 719–21 (2010).Google Scholar

⁴ Verfassung des Freistaates [Constitution of Free State of Bavaria], Dec. 2, 1946, Gesetzes- und Verordnungsblatt Bayern 1946, 333, translation at https://www.bayern.landtag.de/en/documents/rechtsgrundlagen/constitution-of-the-free-state-of-bavaria/. The German text reads:Google Scholar

“Angesichts des Trümmerfeldes, zu dem eine Staats- und Gesellschaftsordnung ohne Gott, ohne Gewissen und ohne Achtung vor der Würde des Menschen die Überlebenden des zweiten Weltkrieges geführt hat, in dem festen Entschlusse, den kommenden deutschen Geschlechtern die Segnungen des Friedens, der Menschlichkeit und des Rechtes dauernd zu sichern, gibt sich das Bayerische Volk, eingedenk seiner mehr als tausendjährigen Geschichte, nachstehende demokratische Verfassung ….”Google Scholar

Id. Google Scholar

⁵ U.N. Charter pmbl.Google Scholar

⁶ See Rüdiger Wolfrum, pmbl, in 1 The Charter of the United Nations: A Commentary 15 (Bruno Simma ed., 3rd ed. 2012). Yet, the text also mentions that the instances in which the Preamble has been explicitly referenced in interpretations of the Charter have been rare.Google Scholar

⁷ Robert Cover, Nomos and Narrative, 97 Harv. L. Rev. 4, 4–5 (1983–84).Google Scholar

⁸ See Assmann, Jan, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis 48–56 (3d ed. 2000).Google Scholar

⁹ See Herfried Münkler, Antifaschismus und antifaschistischer Widerstand als politischer Gründungsmythos der DDR, 45 APuZ 16, 18–20 (1998).Google Scholar

¹⁰ The powerful image that was inspired by Paul Klee's “Angelus Novus.” See Benjamin, Walter, Über den Begriff der Geschichte (1940): Theses on the Philosophy of History, in Illuminations: Essays and Reflections 257 (Hannah Arendt ed., Harry Zohn trans., 1968).Google Scholar

¹¹ 553 U.S. 723 (2008).Google Scholar

¹² Id. at 739–41.Google Scholar

¹³ Id. Google Scholar

¹⁴ See, e.g., Lewis, Jeff, Cultural Studies 386–87 (2d ed. 2008); Denbeaux, Mark P. & Jonathan Hafetz, Introduction, in The Guantánamo Lawyers: Inside a Prison Outside the Law 1, 4 (Denbeakux, Mark P. & Jonathan Hafetz eds., 2009).Google Scholar

¹⁵ Boumediene, 553 U.S. at 746.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Strafgesetzbuch [STGB] [Penal Code], § 130, para. 4, translation at http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/ [hereinafter German Criminal Code].Google Scholar

¹⁷ See Grundgesetz [GG] [Basic Law], art. 5.2, translation at http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/index.html.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfGE] [Federal Constitutional Court], Nov. 4, 2009, 124 Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts 300, 42–43, translation at http://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Entscheidungen/EN/2009/11/rs20091104_1bvr215008en.html.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Münkler, supra note 9, at 18 (“Politische Mythen berichten … nicht von Ereignissen, sondern von Zäsuren der Zeit und Interpunktionen der Geschichte.”).Google Scholar

²⁰ For explications of this concept, see Ansgar Nünning, Unreliable, Compared to What? Towards a Cognitive Theory of Unreliable Narration, in Grenzüberschreitungen 53 (Walter Grünzweig & Andreas Solbach eds., 1999); Vera Nünning, Unreliable Narration and the Historical Variability of Values and Norms, 38 Style 236 (2004).Google Scholar

²¹ Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfGE] [Federal Constitutional Court], Feb. 26, 2008, 120 Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts 224, 3–4, 50. For the unreliability of the majority's narratives, see Andreas von Arnauld & Stefan Martini, Unreliable Narration in Law Courts, in Unreliable Narration and Trustworthiness 347, 362–65 (Vera Nünning ed., 2015).Google Scholar

²² See generally Foucault, Michel, L'Ordre du Discours (1971); Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (1990).Google Scholar

²³ See generally Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfGE] [Federal Constitutional Court], May 10, 1957, 6 Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts 389.Google Scholar

²⁴ Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfGE] [Federal Constitutional Court], Feb. 19, 2013, 133 Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts 59, translation at: https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Entscheidungen/EN/2013/02/ls20130219_1bvl000111en.html.Google Scholar

²⁵ Id. at 55.Google Scholar

²⁶ Cover, supra note 7, at 4–5.Google Scholar

²⁷ See generally Delgado, Richard, Storytelling for Oppositionists and Others, 87 Mich. L. Rev. 2411 (1989); Ball, Milner S., Stories of Origin and Constitutional Possibilities, 87 Mich. L. Rev. 2280 (1989); Peter Fitzpatrick, The Mythology of Modern Law (1992).Google Scholar

²⁸ Statutory provisions are of a different shape and character. According to the classification in German legal doctrine, “complete” legal norms possess an “if-then” structure. The following observations only apply to them. There would be less use for a narratological approach to, e.g., sets of statutory definitions. Moreover, one has to take into account differences in legal cultures: In the German regulatory tradition, the substantive provision (the “command,” so to speak) is usually kept separate from provisions that define its elements. In the Anglo-American tradition, however, both functions–command and definition–are typically blended into one detailed and complex provision. For a skeptical account of the narrative quality of this kind of statutory law, see Fludernik, Monika, A Narratology of Law?, 1 Critical Analysis of Law 87, 101–07 (2014).Google Scholar

²⁹ Meir Sternberg, If-Plots: Narrativity and the Law-Code, in Theorizing Narrativity 29 (John Pier & José Angél García Landa eds., 2008).Google Scholar

³⁰ German Criminal Code, supra note 16, at § 221, para. 1.Google Scholar

³¹ See Labov, William, The Transformation of Experience in Narrative Syntax, in Language in the Inner City 354, 361 (1972) (“[A] minimal narrative is defined as containing a single temporal juncture.”).Google Scholar

³² For the structure of “plots,” see Lotman, Jurij, The Structure of the Artistic Text 231–39 (Gail Lenhoff & Ronald Vroon trans., 1977). It defines an event as the “movement of the plot” that “always involves the violation of some prohibition and is always a fact which takes places, though it need not have taken place” i.e. “the shifting of a persona across the borders of a semantic field.” Id. at 233, 236, 238.Google Scholar

³³ For these conventional narrative models, see Martínez & Scheffel, supra note 1, at 111–19.Google Scholar

³⁴ Boyd White, Heracles' Bow 175 (1985).Google Scholar

³⁵ See Searle, John R., Speech Acts 175–98 (1969). For specific comparison between law and magic, see Andreas von Arnauld, Recht – Spiel – Magie: Hommage à Johan Huizinga, in Recht und Spielregeln 101, 108–09 (2003).Google Scholar

³⁶ This is even more palpable in German, where the law generally states that the perpetrator “is” punished (wird bestraft). See, e.g., German Criminal Code, supra note 16, at § 221, para. 1.Google Scholar

³⁷ For a closer analysis, see Andreas von Arnauld, supra note 21, at 29–31.Google Scholar

³⁸ Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the Folktale (1928) (Wagner, Louis A. ed., Laurence Scott trans., 2nd ed. 1968).Google Scholar

³⁹ Katharina Sobota, Stimmigkeit als Rechtsstruktur, 77 Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie 243, 253 (1991) (“Rechte können wie Lebewesen etwas bewirken, begründen, hemmen, lösen, übertragen, – sie können bestehen, zusammenfallen, zugrunde gehen und wieder aufleben.”).Google Scholar

⁴⁰ See generally Marie-Theres Fögen, Römische Rechtsgeschichten (2002).Google Scholar

⁴¹ See generally Manuwald, Henrike, Narrative Bilder in Rechtshandschriften, in Ausbildung des Rechts 168 (Kristin Böse & Susanne Wittekind eds., 2009).Google Scholar

⁴² See id. Google Scholar

⁴³ See generally Teuscher, Simon, Erzähltes Recht (2007).Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Translation taken from the Geneva Bible of 1599.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch [BGB] [Civil Code], § 833, para. 1, translation at http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_bgb/index.html.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ However, this already occurs with some level of abstraction. James Boyd White finds the cause for such abstractions in the limited capacities of human memory, be it individual or collective: “We normally deal with this problem by making skeletal outlines or formulas, which we can remember and which we use to organize the rest of what has happened and what will happen.” White, supra note 34, at 171.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ See Jackson, Bernard S., Law, Fact and Narrative Coherence 97–101 (1988). Jackson refers to a 1985 draft of criminal code in England in which the abstract rules were complemented in an appendix by illustrative examples of the kind: “D, a doctor, finding P trapped and unable to speak after a road accident, injects a pain-killing drug.” Id. Google Scholar

⁴⁸ See Cover, supra note 7, at 5.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ See Jackson, supra note 47, at 3, 106.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ On atypical (“difficult”) cases, see id. at 106–10 (“These are characterised by their significant deviation from the story that stands behind the norm. While a casuistic system can more easily accommodate such cases, in dealing with statutory law it can become necessary to avoid untenable results of generalisation by extending or reducing the ambit of the norm.”). For the limits of legal hermeneutics in unusual cases in which our everyday language fails, see Struck, Gerhard, Die Menschenwürde gilt als unantastbar: Zur Rhetorik der juristischen Fiktion, 12 Zeitschrift für Semiotik 179, 185 (1990).Google Scholar

⁵¹ See Ehrlich, Eugen, Fundamental Principles of the Sociology of Law 271–96 (1913) (Moll, Walter L. trans., 2002).Google Scholar

⁵² See Smith, David Chan, Sir Edward Coke and the Reformation of the Laws 1578–1616, 115–38 (2014).Google Scholar

⁵³ See, e.g., Klaus F. Röhl & Hans Christian Röhl, Allgemeine Rechtslehre 123–24, 151–53 (3rd ed. 2008); Rolf Wank, Die Auslegung von Gesetzen 16 (5th ed. 2011); Reinhold Zippelius, Juristische Methodenlehre 79–80 (11th ed. 2012). For a deeper analysis, see generally Jochen Bung, Subsumtion und Interpretation (2004).Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Christoph Engel, Herrschaftsausübung bei offener Wirklichkeitsdefinition: Das Proprium des Rechts aus der Perspektive des öffentlichen Rechts, in Das Proprium der Rechtswissenschaft 205, 232–33 (Christoph Engel & Wolfgang Schön eds., 2007). See also Gaakeer chapter in this volume (discussing the hermeneutics of the adjudicative process in this issue.).Google Scholar

⁵⁵ See generally Schlink, Bernhard, Bemerkungen zum Stand der Methodendiskussion in der Verfassungsrechtswissenschaft, 19 Staat 73 (1980); Robert Alexy, Theorie der juristischen Argumentation 17 (1987).Google Scholar

⁵⁶ See Engisch, Karl, Logische Studien zur Gesetzesanwendung 14–15 (3rd ed. 1963). For an elaboration on Engisch's concept, see Marijan Pavčnik, Das Hin- und Herwandern des Blickes, 39 Rechtstheorie 557 (2008).Google Scholar

⁵⁷ For a similar reconstruction, see Grasnick, Walter, In Fallgeschichten verstrickt, Zeitschrift für Rechtsphilosophie 192, 197 (2003).Google Scholar

⁵⁸ A different solution is proposed by Ino Augsberg. See Augsberg, Ino, Die Lesbarkeit des Rechts (2009). Augsberg (following Deleuze's lead) proposes an isomorphic structure of law and facts in reconstructing both as texts.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ See Schapp, Wilhelm, In Geschichten verstrickt (1953).Google Scholar

⁶⁰ For a warning of this danger, see, e.g., Lutz Niethammer, Kollektive Identität (2000); Andreas von Arnauld, Die Wissenschaft vom Öffentlichen Recht nach einer Öffnung für sozialwissenschaftliche Theorie, in Öffentliches Recht und Wissenschaftstheorie 65, 92–93 (Andreas Funke & Jörn Lüdemann eds., 2009).Google Scholar

⁶¹ Martínez & Scheffel, supra note 1, at 138.Google Scholar

⁶² Cover, supra note 7, at 53.Google Scholar

⁶³ The paper upon which this essay is based was first presented at a conference that took place during a large-scale strike by the train drivers' union of Germany GdL (Gewerkschaft der Lokführer). I apologize for the occasional resulting pun.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Of course, I am hiding here behind a nameless passenger so as not to arouse the righteous scorn of criminal lawyers by expressing this deviant legal opinion myself.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Grundgesetz [GG] [Basic Law], art. 9, para. 3, translation at http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/. It was translated by Christian Tomuschat and Currie, David P., as revised by Christian Tomuschat and Kommers, Donald P. in cooperation with the Language Service of the German Bundestag (March 21, 2016).Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfGE] [Federal Constitutional Court], Mar. 1, 1979, 50 Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts 290, 366–68.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ White, supra note 34, at 175.Google Scholar