Form of crime fiction, genre fiction and the great literary divide

Content

what it’s about, also called theme

Form

how a work is put together, also called style, plot

Story

the chronological sequence of events; it includes everything that happens between the inciting event and its resolution

Plot

how the author relates the events or tells the story

Plotting encompasses:

POV, chronology, construction, logic

What was the first modern detective story?

Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allen Poe

Three reasons why the detective genre emerged in the 19th century

Policing, the rise of science and tech, the rise of the novel

What did Joyce Carol Oates write?

Where are you going where have you been?

Death and the Maiden

A common motif in renaissance, original title of Oates story.

Who inspired Poe’s story?

William Godwin, ETA Hoffmann, analytical thinking

What does modern mean?

post 1800s, industrial revolution, emergence of mass culture

Who was one of the most recognizable figures in the 19th century popular culture was…

flaneur

What is the flaneur?

Middle-class man, proto-detective, strolling the city, analytical

Rise of the novel

distinct characters, interest in all classes, attention to detail to everyday life, clear passing of time, sense of space

What was the first full-length detective NOVEL?

The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins

What did Sherlock Holmes help create?

Detective genre

What were the years of the Golden Age of detective fiction UK (Interwar Years)

1918-1939

Best-selling novelist of all time?

Agatha Christie, golden age detective fiction

What was popular in the US during the interwar years?

Hardboiled Detective Fiction

Example of Golden Age story

Murder on Orient Express

Example of Hardboiled

Knights of the Open Palm, one of the earliest examples of hardboiled

what did crime fiction lead to?

The splintering of genres, suspense, thriller, spy…

What did crime fiction solve?

Genre confusion, still has problems tho

Genre Fiction

easy to understand formulas, meant to create feeling, favor content

Literary fiction

high artistic and or cultural value, more original, makes readers think

Where did hardboiled detective fiction first appear?

Pulp magazines, 1920s 1930s

What is pulp fiction?

part of genre fiction, meant to entertain with taboo subjects

Who wrote Knights of the Open Palm?

Carroll John Daly, pulp fiction

Who wrote red wind

Raymon chandler, literary pulp

Who wrote a good man is hard to find?

Flannery O’Connor, literary fiction

Hardboiled fiction and race

Aware of racism, but does not address it upfront