54705 - English Literature 3 (M-Z)

Learning outcomes

Upon completing this course students will haveacquired an in-depthknowledge of the history ofEnglish literature.They will have obtained critical insight into a selection of literary works andwill becapable of evaluating their literary qualities, analysing them with the help of precise critical metholodogies. They will have acquired the theoretical tools they need to recognise the formal, thematic and stylistic components oftheworks includedin the syllabus, relating them to theirhistorical and cultural contexts. They will be able to discuss, translate and relate the contents of these works from a linguistic, historical and philological viewpoint.

Course contents

From Poe to Larsson: 19th and 20th century stories of crime and detection.

Maurizio Ascari

This course will explore the development of crime fiction along the 19th and 20th centuries. Its aim is to illustrate the complexity of a literary genre which was reductively considered in the past as structurally formulaic and critically uninteresting, but which has recently obtained increasing attention and recognition as a significant literary phenomenon. Recent criticism has reassessed the normative view of the genre that asserted itself in the so-called ‘golden age' of detective fiction – i.e. the interwar years, the age of Agatha Christie, when the British formula of the ‘clue-puzzle', based on a skilful use of clues and on the ‘fair play' principle, asserted itself – in order to study what is now commonly labelled as crime fiction with a descriptive and inclusive approach.

Rejecting the stereotyped view that this genre is identified solely by the focus on clues and the disciplinary presence of a detective, critics have reassessed its complex history, exploring the relation between interweaving subgenres such as nineteenth century sensation fiction, detective fiction proper, the hardboiled, the noir, the psycho-thriller, the police procedural, postmodern anti-detective fiction, conspiracy thrillers and others. As we can see, crime fiction is incessantly metamorphosing. Moreover, in the course of the twentieth century this galaxy of subgenres has been characterised by the process of remediation or more generally by a phenomenon of cross-fertilisation whereby noir films – and more recently tv series – have played a major role in shaping the imagination of the reading public.

This transmedia genre will be explored as a ‘field of tension' in order to study the changing status of both crime/criminals (due to the continuous reshaping of laws and social norms) and of detection/detectives (due to the development of forensic science). We will also investigate the interplay between aspects of the detective such as mind and body (thinking machines versus vulnerable detectives), intellect and emotions (how do these apparently opposed dimensions concur to the personality of fallible and infallible detectives?) as well as the issue of gender, since we will discuss both male and female detectives.

Readings/Bibliography

Primary sources

E.A. Poe, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841), "The Purloined Letter" (1845)

William Wilkie Collins, “The Diary of Anne Rodway” (1856)

A.C. Doyle, A Study in Scarlet (1887)

Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep (1939)

P.D. James, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972)

Stieg Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2005)

Criticalsources

Reference text:

Worthington, Heather, Key Concepts in Crime Fiction, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, pp. 1-151.

Articles:

Ascari, Maurizio, “Dal trionfo dell'enigmistica al ritorno del brivido: evoluzione di un genere letterario”, in Crime e detective fiction nel Novecento: voci a confronto, a cura di Maurizio Ascari e Francesca Saggini, Fictions. Studi sulla Narrativita', 10 (giugno 2011), pp. 15-23.

Knight, Stephen, “Watson's Wound and the Speckled Band: Imperial Threats and English Crimes in Conan Doyle”, Linguae &, 1 (2006), pp. 11-24

Maxfield, James F., “The Unfinished Detective: The Work of P.D. James”, Critique, 28.4 (Summer 1987), pp. 211-23

Rabinowitz, Peter J., “Rats Behind the Wainscoting: Politics, Convention, and Chandler's The Big Sleep”, Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 22.2 (Summer 1980), pp. 224-45.

Sampaio, Maria de Lurdes, “Millennium Trilogy: Eye for Eye and the Utopia of Order in Modern Waste Lands”, in Cross-Cultural Communication, 7.2 (2011), pp.73-81.

Snyder, Laura J., “Sherlock Holmes: scientific detective”, Endeavour, 28.3 (September 2004), pp 104-108.

Werner, James V., “The Detective Gaze: Edgar A. Poe, the Flaneur and the Physiognomy of Crime”, in American Transcendental Quarterly, 15.1 (March 2001), pp. 5-21.

Teaching methods

Due to the large number of students, the course will consist mainly of frontal lessons,aimingto provide participants with the critical tools they need to interrogate and understand literary texts, both in terms of linguistic analysis and of historical/cultural contexts. Sinceour critical itinerarywill be cultural rather than literary, the course will include the viewing and discussion of films such as Billy Wilder's noir masterpiece Double Indemnity (1944) and Alfred Hitchock's psychothriller Spellbound (1945).

Assessment methods

The exam will be oral and lasting an average of 20/25 minutes.

Teaching tools

The Powerpoint files that will be used during the course will be available for students on the AMS Campus website

Office hours

See the website of Maurizio Ascari