Subject Cultures: The English Novel from the 18th to the 21st Century. Eds. Nora Kuster, Stella Butter, and Sarah Heinz, 2016

The article uses detective fiction and Arthur Conan Doyle’s protagonists Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson to analyze the crisis of late-bourgeois subject culture towards the end of the 19th century. It shows that the shift from the early bourgeois code of morality to the later code of respectability leads to a deeply felt ambivalence within middle-class subjectivity. In the analysis of A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, and of short stories from the first collection The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the article analyse how Holmes and Watson embody bourgeois culture while at the same time also transgressing its boundaries. In the discussion of detective fiction, the article then relates the ambivalences of late-bourgeois subject culture to the genre’s conventions and to the specific reception process that it trains the reader in.

Open Library of Humanities, 2019

A variety of psychoanalytic readings of late-Victorian and early-twentieth century crime fiction often place the detective at the centre of their analysis, depicting them as a conduit through which readings of other aspects of the genre can be articulated. Samantha Walton, for example, explores the idea that the ‘the detective [acts as the] diagnostician of the self’, and goes on to argue that ‘[t]he central place of psychological discourses in the golden age novel both incites and responds to specific cultural anxieties about selfhood’ (2015: 275). Consequently, however, the psychological effects of performing the role of ‘detective’ remain under-examined. Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous Sherlock Holmes performs his detection under constant scrutiny from those around him who fail to understand his mental processes. In the early twentieth century, Dorothy L. Sayers’s Lord Peter Wimsey struggles to reconcile the tension between his position as ‘aristocrat’ and ‘detective’, and also has difficulty with disassociating his activities as a detective with his experiences in the First World War. Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot’s ‘othered’ position as of a different nationality to most other characters psychologically isolates him, whilst his compunction for the domestic does not mesh with his activities as an externally-othered figure. This article performs a reading of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Sayers’s Lord Peter Wimsey, and Christie’s Hercule Poirot and offers a tentative exploration of how these classic ‘detectives’ are often physically, socially, narratively and psychologically isolated by performing their role.

2009

Abstract The aim of the article is to analyse the status of the detective fiction in the 20th-century literary criticism. The article is divided into two parts. In the first one, the emphasis is placed on the examination of the classical and modern crime stories, their statuses and thematic components with reference to a structural approach to detective fiction delineated by Tzvetan Todorov in “The Typology of Detective Fiction.” The second part is devoted to the scrutiny of Martin Amis’s London Fields as the illustration of postmodern crime fiction. When examining the novel by Martin Amis, I underline that the British writer has made a substantial contribution to the modification of a classical pattern of crime fiction. Like many other artists of his generation, the author of Money, London Fields and Night Train has attempted to be in tune with his times, so his works touch upon the issues of the contemporary world, especially on the role of the writer at the end of the 20th century, next to the themes related to crime, violence and power, as well as the problem of human motive and existential anxiety. Finally, in this part I stress that in London Fields Amis has incorporated the elements of surrealism, hyper-reality, pastiche as well as metafictional linguistic games and a subjective narrative. Key words: M. Amis, T. Todorov, classical detective fiction, structural approach, postmodern crime fiction

Women's Studies International Forum, 1988

Synopals-This paper presents an analysis of the detective fiction genre and its use by femunst writers to reveal the practlccs of race. class, and sexual politics in contemporary society. I begin with a brief survey of the conventions of detectwe fiction, against which I then conduct a detailed analysts of three dmve novels by women, Amanda Cross's Derrh m a 'Rnumd Aosrtion (1981), Valerie Miner's Mutier in the Ennlish Dwartment (1982). and Barbara Wilson's Murder m the Co&c&e (1984). In each case the-&iti&practice oi the kt is evaluated, particularly in relation to the writer's particular inflection of generic convention. loath m II ?&wed #bation IS found to be a predominantly conservative tat with the detective performing many of the roles of the traditional male dctccnvz. Both Murder in the Englsh &par?ment and Murder m the Collectwe work more hmovativcly with genre conventions to produce lughly politicized tats, though Mu&r in the Cokctwe capitulates fiily to the lure of convention with a smprisingly conservative ending. Mu&r in fhe English apartment is the most radical tat and succeeds as "political fiction" though without the suspense of the classic Whodunnit.

In the present scenario where, English Literature stands as a pivotal area of research and development, offbeat genres have taken a step ahead as areas of interest among scholars. Detective fiction which came into the literary scene in the second half of the Victorian Age, found its first prominent clues in the novels of Wilkie Collins. Though the chronology of detective fiction is short, it bloomed in the early years of the twentieth century through the works of great writers such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; who gave the world the most fascinating fictional detective figure i.e. Sherlock Holmes. The expanse of the genre, then, became inclusive of scientific understanding and techniques. As interdisciplinarity swept in detective fiction, kaleidoscopic views and analysis were generated regarding the works of detection. The genre became more prominent with writers like Agatha Christie and later J.K Rowling, Joe Pickett, etc. Detective fiction continues to flourish as a genre in the twentieth first century and is also welcomed in the form of adaptations on the digital screen and television. The paper aims to highlight the origen of Detective fiction and the journey of its development to one of the most eminent genres in the present time. The paper briefly throws light on oeuvre of Wilkie Collins and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who were the pioneers in the progress of the genre. The paper seeks to establish the significance and relevance of detective fiction and the various factors that led to its rise in the field of English Literature.According to Charles J. Rzepka: A Mystery detective story usually contains a detective of some kind, an unsolved mystery (not always technically crime), and an investigation by which the mystery is eventually solved, there is another component, however, that may be present in varying degrees, or may not be present at all. This is the so-called ‗puzzle element': the presentation of the mystery as an ongoing problem for the reader to solve, and its power to engage the reader's own reasoning abilities. The first elements of detective fiction-detective, mystery, investigation-make a conjoint appearance quite early in the history of the genre. However, the fourth, the ‗puzzle element', is conspicuous by its absence during most of this period. (Rzepka,p. 10) In his book Detective Fiction : Cultural history of Literature, Charles J. Rzepka defines four major components which contribute in building up a detective story-the first being the self-proclaimed detective who carries out the investigation throughout the plot; the second constituent i.e. an ‗unsolved mystery' or a baffling problem which governs the storyline and the behaviors of the characters. This problem should not necessarily be a crime. Lastly, an investigation should take place with the motive to solve the mystery or the problem. Rzepka adds that in later works of detective fiction a fourth element also emerged to prominence in detective story i.e. the ‗Puzzle element'. This ‗Puzzle element' introduced in modern detective fiction, added to the thrill and intensity in the work by involving and engaging the reader's reason and logic to figure out the solution to the ongoing problem. Giving the reader access to information important for solving mystery is considered significant by many critics in today's time for the stories of detection. These elements are quite consistent in the detective story. The detectives in question can be officials, privates, professionals, or amateurs. The problem may not always be a mystery but rather a difficulty that needs to be overcome-for example arrest and escape of someone, theft of something and retrieval, etc.These detective suspense tales had a history that dated back to several centuries before. Despite the fact that the most significant works of detective fiction were written in the nineteenth and twentieth century, the origen of the detective novels can be traced several years back in the history of literary writing. Both the detective-story proper and the pure tale of horror are very ancient in origen. All native folklore has its ghost tales, while the first four detective stories…hail respectively from the Jewish Apocrypha,

Modernism/modernity, 2001

The Name of the Rose

Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose is a serio-comic pastiche of the detective story set in the middle ages, which uses history as "a distant mirror" to comment, from a Western Marxist perspective, on contemporary political issues. Structurally, however, The Name of the Rose is a fictional enactment of many of the semiotician's recent critical and philosophical ideas. (1) Eco's discussion of "abductive" reasoning in C. S. Peirce and Aristotle appears in a detective not only more fallible than Sherlock Holmes but more aware of what his powers consist of and why they work and fail. (2) Eco's explanation of what he calls the "iterative scheme" in popular fiction-ways of handling time that allow for indefinite sequelae-appears negatively here, where time and time's passage are given their full durational weight. (3) Eco's discussion of closed and open texts, and of a third category "of which the chairman is probably Tristram Shandy," which evades both modes of reading and forces one into consciousness of the reading process itself, is enacted in The Name of the Rose, in a traditionally closed genre (the mystery) which is first opened but finally given an ending that deconstructs the mystery novel by forcing the reader into the third, Shandean, mode.

2021

This chapter focuses on popular fiction and particularly the crime genre, encompassing both the detective story and the thriller. Critical surveys looking back across the decades finds these subgenres difficult to distinguish over time but writers of the 1930s are very much aware of which subgenre they are writing in and its relative status. In 1942 Nicholas Blake asserted that 'It is an established fact that the detective novel proper is read almost exclusively by the upper and professional classes. The so-called "lower middle" and "working classes" tend to read "bloods", thrillers.' And, he points out, 'the modern thriller is generally much below the detective story in sophistication and style' (xxii) Given the perceived hierarchy of readership and regard, defining the difference between these subgenres became important to some authors. In 1936, Dorothy L. Sayers identified 'the most important principle of the modern detective story' which she calls the 'Fair-Play Rule' (vii) as what marks detective fiction out. Sayers sees this defining characteristic as implicit in the foundational tales of the genre by Edgar Allan Poe, and Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone, but lost in the welter of Victorian sensation fiction, until Conan Doyle's Holmes, and almost lost again in the overdone reaction to sensation fiction when detective short stories reduced the form to 'over-intellectualized' puzzles in which 'human interest was lost in the mechanical ingenuities of the plot.' (xii) What Sayers is doing here, not at all objectively, is charting the most respectable line through the vicissitudes of sordid popularity. She very much wants detective fiction to keep the respectable mainstream literary novel in sight and is wary about it being equated with other forms of 'popular' literature. Popular fiction in the 1930s was generally regarded by literary critics on both right and left as either irredeemably bad or as a damaging addictive vice. Q.D. Leavis argues in Fiction and the Reading Public (1932) thatalongside radio, cinema and newspapers-popular literature 'does not merely fail to help him [the reader], it prevents him from normal development.' (224-5) To practitioner Christopher Caudwell in 1937 popular fiction was the new 'opium of the people' (1973: 123). Writing in 1980, as academic criticism finally began to change its tune with regard to

Introduction and Thesis Statement This essay will compare a range of literary texts from the traditional detective genre and the Postmodern detective genre to illustrate and critically assess their similarities and differences. Mystery, playfulness, incoherence, and fragmentation are characteristics shared by both the traditional and Postmodern detective genre, these established characteristics are not, however, idly adopted by the postmodernist, rather, they are adapted and modified. This essay will argue that by analysing these deviations from the traditional genre, one can perceive within the text a postmodern attitude with regards to mystery, truth, reality, art, and philosophy. The Postmodern detective fictions that will be analysed are Samuel Beckett’s Molloy (1955) and Jorge Luis Borges’ ‘Death and the Compass’ (1965), both in their English translation. Jacques Derrida's ‘Différance' (in translation 1978), Umberto Ero’s ‘Postmodernism, Irony, and The Enjoyable’ (in translation 1985), and Jean Baudrillard’s Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared? (in translation 2009), among other theoretical Postmodern literature will be used to discuss Postmodern attitudes and philosophy together with these detective fictions. Arthur Conan Doyle's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892) will be the primary traditional detective fiction that will be compared and contrasted with its Postmodern descendants to illustrate their similarities and differences. This essay will be split into two sections. The first section will focus primarily on Beckett’s Molloy, and will demonstrate and analyse how the postmodernist approach to treatment of ‘the mystery', both by the detective of the tale and within the text more generally reveals: the Postmodern understanding of reality and truth as fragmented. The second section will focus primarily on Borges’ ‘Death and the Compass’, and will look at how the postmodernists revisit this genre with irony: simultaneously accepting and rejecting the traditional detective genre.