Deviance in Contemporary Crime Fiction

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Deviance in Contemporary Crime Fiction Crime Files Series General Editor: Clive Bloom Since its invention in the nineteenth century, detective fiction has never been more popular. In novels, short stories, films, radio, television and now in com- puter games, private detectives and psychopaths, prim poisoners and over- worked cops, tommy gun gangsters and cocaine criminals are the very stuff of modern imagination, and their creators one mainstay of popular consciousness. Crime Files is a ground-breaking series offering scholars, students and discern- ing readers a comprehensive set of guides to the world of crime and detective fiction. Every aspect of crime writing, detective fiction, gangster movie, true- crime exposé, police procedural and post-colonial investigation is explored through clear and informative texts offering comprehensive coverage and theoretical sophistication. Published titles include: Hans Bertens and Theo D’haen CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN CRIME FICTION Anita Biressi CRIME, FEAR AND THE LAW IN TRUE CRIME STORIES Ed Christian (editor) THE POST-COLONIAL DETECTIVE Paul Cobley THE AMERICAN THRILLER Generic Innovation and Social Change in the 1970s Christiana Gregoriou DEVIANCE IN CONTEMPORARY CRIME FICTION Lee Horsley THE NOIR THRILLER Merja Makinen AGATHA CHRISTIE Investigating Femininity Fran Mason AMERICAN GANGSTER CINEMA From Little Caesar to Pulp Fiction Linden Peach MASQUERADE, CRIME AND FICTION Criminal Deceptions Susan Rowland FROM AGATHA CHRISTIE TO RUTH RENDELL British Women Writers in Detective and Crime Fiction Adrian Schober POSSESSED CHILD NARRATIVES IN LITERATURE AND FILM Contrary States Heather Worthington THE RISE OF THE DETECTIVE IN EARLY NINETEENTH-CENTURY POPULAR FICTION Crime Files Series Standing Order ISBN 978-0–333–71471–3 (hardback) 978-0–333–93064–9 (paperback) (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England Deviance in Contemporary Crime Fiction Christiana Gregoriou © Christiana Gregoriou 2007 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2007 978- 0- 230- 00339- 2 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2007 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-0-230-59463-0 ISBN 978-0-230-20721-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-0-230-20721-9 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10987654321 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 to mum and dad This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface ix Acknowledgements xi 1 Introduction: Narratology and Deviance 1 Aims, material and method 1 Narratology and deviance 4 The structure of narratives 4 Crime fiction as genre and as popular literature 12 Deviance 18 Outline of remaining contents 34 2 Contemporary Crime Fiction: Constraints and Development 36 Introduction 36 Crime fiction: origins and development 37 Rules, regularities and constraints 39 Defining the crime fiction genre 39 Rules and constraints 41 Formulaic regularities 44 What sort of an attraction does crime literature hold for its readers? 48 Crime fiction reading as pleasure 49 Crime fiction reading as an addiction 51 Crime fiction and the notion of realism 52 The genre as a mirror to society 52 Challenging the masculinity, whiteness and straightness of the genre 54 From private eye novel to police procedural 55 Character in detective fiction 58 The detective as the criminal’s double 58 Writers focusing on the murderer 60 The future of crime fiction 61 vii viii Contents 3 Linguistic Deviance: The Stylistics of Criminal Justification 62 Introduction 62 The stylistics of justification in contemporary crime fiction 63 Contextualising the crime fiction extracts 63 Stylistic analysis of the extracts 67 The study’s conclusions 75 A further investigation into the portrayal of the criminal mind in Patterson 78 Contextualising the criminally-focalised extracts 78 The poetics of the criminal mind 79 The study’s conclusions 90 4 Social Deviance in Contemporary Crime Fiction 91 Defining ‘abnormal behaviour’: the Connelly series 91 The carnivalesque as social deviation in the genre 94 Carnivals 94 Carnivalesque 98 The carnival of crime fiction 100 Jungian archetypes 107 Criminal archetypes 111 5 Generic Deviance in Contemporary Crime Fiction 123 On defining genre 123 Wittgenstein’s family resemblance theory 124 The prototype approach to sense 127 Defamiliarisation and genre 129 The crime fiction genre 132 Cornwell’s generic form: a subgenre or a new genre? 140 What constitutes generic deviance? 150 6 Conclusion 151 Book review 151 Metafunctions of deviance 153 Investigating deviance 155 Writers on their work 160 References 166 Index 175 Preface Like most people, Quinn knew almost nothing about crime. He had never murdered anyone, had never stolen anything, and he did not know anyone who had. He had never been inside a police station, had never met a private detective, had never spoken to a criminal. Whatever he knew about these things, he had learned from books, films, and newspapers. He did not, however, consider this to be a handicap. What inter- ested him about the stories he wrote was not their relation to the world but their relation to other stories. Even before he became William Wilson, Quinn had been a devoted reader of mystery novels. He knew that most of them were poorly written, that most could not stand up to even the vaguest sort of examination, but still, it was the form that appealed to him, and it was the rare, unspeakable bad mystery that he would refuse to read. Whereas his taste in other books was rigorous, demanding to the point of narrow-mindedness, with these books he showed almost no discrimination whatsoever. When he was in the right mood, he had little trouble reading ten or twelve of them in a row. It was a kind of hunger that took hold of him, a craving for a special food, and he would not stop until he had eaten his fill. Auster (1988: 7–8) This excerpt, taken from ‘City of Glass’, a story from Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy (1988), expresses a view of detective literature that is shared by many devoted crime readers, including myself. Auster’s char- acter Quinn is a writer as well as a reader of the genre, who finds himself fascinated with the form to such an extent that there is little crime literature which he would find unappealing. What emerges in Auster’s story is in fact an investigation into the art of story telling, as well as an examination into the essence of language itself. Similarly, this book is a study of the format of the genre and an exploration of the language employed in selected extracts. Unlike Quinn, I addition- ally examine the form in relation to the world we live in, that is, in a social context. ix x Preface Detective stories have dominated paperback publishing since the twentieth-century revolution of the mass-market industry began. Though the term ‘detective story’ is long standing (as early as 1924, the term was ‘the unprepossessing name by which this class of fiction is now universally known’, Freeman, 1946: 7), in the USA the term ‘mystery’ is also used. I, however, favour the term crime fiction or crime literature in reference to the category, since I find that though the works I analyse certainly involve detection, it is quite often someone other than the detective doing the ‘detecting’. Christiana Gregoriou December 2005 Acknowledgements I take this opportunity to thank my PhD supervisor, Professor Peter Stockwell, for his professional guidance and advice while researching and writing an earlier version of this text as a doctoral thesis. His tremendous enthusiasm for stylistics and his thoroughness and insight will continue to influence me throughout my career as a stylistician and crime fiction analyst. I would also like to thank my friends and colleagues for their encour- agement over so many years. Last but by no means least, I would like to thank my parents for their love and invaluable support. This book is dedicated to them. xi 1 Introduction: Narratology and Deviance Aims, material and method I aim to explore the poetics of deviance in the context of contemporary crime fiction. I use the term poetics, since it etymologically suggests a study concerned with the art or theory of ‘making’. Though, as Wales (2001: 305) argues, the term since classical times has been linked with the art of poetry, its etymological definition suggests that it is con- cerned with the art of any genre, hence Aristotle’s Poetics (1996), which discusses the art of drama and epic, but not specifically poetry.
Recommended publications
  • 100 MOST BORROWED BOOKS (Metropolitan Boroughs) July 2000
    100 MOST BORROWED BOOKS (Metropolitan Boroughs) July 2000 – June 20021 ISBN Title Contributor Publisher Year 1 0593039777 The Thursday friend Catherine Cookson Bantam 1999 2 0593042875 The blind years: a novel Catherine Cookson Bantam 1998 3 0593040929 The bonny dawn Catherine Cookson Bantam 1996 Harry Potter and the chamber 4 0747538484 J. K. Rowling Bloomsbury 1999 of secrets 5 0593042212 The solace of sin Catherine Cookson Bantam 1998 6 0752814478 Tara Road Maeve Binchy Orion 1998 7 0593034767 The desert crop Catherine Cookson Bantam 1997 Harry Potter and the 8 0747532745 J.K. Rowling Bloomsbury 1997 philosopher's stone 9 0749397543 Captain Corelli's mandolin Louis de Bernieres Minerva 1995 10 0747219990 Tomorrow the world Josephine Cox Headline 1998 11 059301359x The year of the virgins Catherine Cookson Bantam Press 1993 12 0593041259 The bondage of love Catherine Cookson Bantam 1997 13 0718144082 Second wind Dick Francis Michael Joseph 1999 14 0593041887 The lady on my left: a novel Catherine Cookson Bantam 1997 15 0593034732 Riley Catherine Cookson Bantam 1998 16 0316646377 Black notice Patricia Cornwell Little, Brown 1999 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Bloomsbury 17 074754624x J. K. Rowling 2000 fire Children's 18 0747220921 The whispering years Harry Bowling Headline 1999 Barbara Taylor 19 0002256940 A sudden change of heart HarperCollins 1998 Bradford 20 074722000x The gilded cage Josephine Cox Headline 1999 21 0316644404 Point of origin Patricia Cornwell Little, Brown 1998 22 0316846791 Southern cross Patricia Cornwell Little, Brown 1999 23 0593028546 A ruthless need Catherine Cookson Bantam 1995 24 0747249598 Love me or leave me Josephine Cox Headline 1998 25 0747249571 Cradle of thorns Josephine Cox Headline 1997 Harry Potter and the prisoner 26 0747542155 J.K.
    [Show full text]
  • English Extension I
    ENGLISH EXTENSION I Crime Genre Essay: “Genre sets a framework of conventions. How useful is it to understand texts in terms of genre? Are texts more engaging when they conform to the conventions, or when they challenge and play with conventions?” “Genres offer an important way of framing texts which assists comprehension. Genre knowledge orientates competent readers of the genre towards appropriate attitudes, assumptions and expectations about a text which are useful in making sense of it. Indeed, one way of defining genre is as a ‘set of expectations.’” (Neale, 1980) The crime fiction genre, which began during the Victorian Era, has adapted over time to fit societal expectations, changing as manner of engaging an audience. Victorian text The Manor House Mystery by J.S. Fletcher may be classified as an archetypal crime fiction text, conforming to conventions whilst The Skull beneath the Skin by P.D. James, The Real Inspector Hound by Tom Stoppard and Capote directed by Bennet Miller challenge and subvert conventions. The altering of conventions is an engaging element of modern crime fiction, and has somewhat, become a convention itself. Genre, Roland Barthes argues, is “a set of constitutive conventions and codes, altering from age to age, but shared by a kind of implicit contract between writer and reader” thus meaning it is “ultimately an abstract conception rather than something that exists empirically in the world.”(Jane Feuer, 1992) The classification of literary works is shaped – and shapes – culture, attitude and societal influence. The crime fiction genre evolved following the Industrial Revolution when anxiety grew within the expanding cities about the frequency of criminal activity.
    [Show full text]
  • PHILOSOPHIES of CRIME FICTION by JOSEF HOFFMANN Translated by Carolyn Kelly, Nadia Majid & Johanna Da Rocha Abreu NEW TITLE
    PHILOSOPHIES OF CRIME FICTION BY JOSEF HOFFMANN Translated By Carolyn Kelly, Nadia Majid & Johanna da Rocha Abreu NEW TITLE MARKETING: A groundbreaking book from an internationally respected writer/academic th Pub. date: 25 July 2013 who has a deep and unique expertise on crime fiction Price: £16.99 Hoffmann references a who’s who of top crime writers – Conan Doyle, ISBN13: 978-1-84344-139-7 Chesterton, Hammett, Camus, Borges, Christie, Chandler, Lewis Binding: Paperback Provides an utterly fresh understanding of the philosophical ideas which Format: Royal(234 x 156mm) underpin crime fiction Extent: 192pp Shows how the insights supplied by great crime writers enable key Rights: World philosophical ideas to be appreciated by a wide audience Market Confirms how much more accessible are crime writers than their philosophical None Restrictions: counterparts – and successful at putting across tenets of philosophy Philosophy / Literary Market: A book for students of philosophy of all ages – and for all crime fiction Theory / Crime Fiction devotees BIC code: HPX / DSA /FF MARKET: Rpt. Code: NP Popular philosophy, Literary Theory, Crime Fiction DESCRIPTION: 'More wisdom is contained in the best crime fiction than in conventional philosophical essays' - Wittgenstein For a review copy, to arrange an author Philosophies of Crime Fiction provides a considered analysis of the philosophical ideas interview or for further information, to be found in crime literature - both hidden and explicit. Josef Hoffmann ranges please contact: Alexandra Bolton expertly across influences and inspirations in crime writing with a stellar cast including +44 (0) 1582 766 348 Conan Doyle, G K Chesterton, Dashiell Hammett, Albert Camus, Borges, Agatha +44 (0) 7824 646 881 Christie, Raymond Chandler and Ted Lewis.
    [Show full text]
  • Parody, Popular Culture, and the Narrative of Javier Tomeo
    PARODY, POPULAR CULTURE, AND THE NARRATIVE OF JAVIER TOMEO by MARK W. PLEISS B.A., Simpson College, 2007 M.A., University of Colorado at Boulder, 2009 A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Colorado in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Spanish and Portuguese 2015 This thesis entitled: Parody, Popular Culture, and the Narrative of Javier Tomeo written by Mark W. Pleiss has been approved for the Department of Spanish and Portuguese __________________________________________________ Dr. Nina L. Molinaro __________________________________________________ Dr. Juan Herrero-Senés __________________________________________________ Dr. Tania Martuscelli __________________________________________________ Dr. Andrés Prieto __________________________________________________ Dr. Robert Buffington Date __________________________________ The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signatories, and We find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards of scholarly work in the abovementioned discipline. iii Pleiss, Mark W. (Ph.D. Spanish Literature, Department of Spanish and Portuguese) Parody, Popular Culture, and the Narrative of Javier Tomeo Dissertation Director: Professor Nina L. Molinaro My thesis sketches a constellation of parodic Works Within the contemporary Spanish author Javier Tomeo's (1932-2013) immense literary universe. These novels include El discutido testamento de Gastón de Puyparlier (1990), Preparativos de viaje (1996), La noche del lobo (2006), Constructores de monstruos (2013), El cazador de leones (1987), and Los amantes de silicona (2008). It is my contention that the Aragonese author repeatedly incorporates and reconfigures the conventions of genres and sub-genres of popular literature and film in order to critique the proliferation of mass culture in Spain during his career as a writer.
    [Show full text]
  • Crime Fiction
    Between the Lines Name: Secondary 2 Unit 5: Espionage Enrichment Date: Group: Crime Fiction Before Reading . Which TV programs or movies about crime do you like to watch? . What do you like or dislike about crime fiction? . Why do you think most people like crime stories? Crime fiction is an extremely popular literary While Reading genre, one that is often transformed into TV Activate prior knowledge shows or movies. These stories are often about . Think of novels, TV, movies, etc. the investigation of a crime and its motives. How many fictional detectives Crime fiction has many subgenres, such as or spies can you name? . Who is your favourite detective detective and spy novels, courtroom dramas, or spy? suspense and mystery. Crime fiction seems . Name any subgenres in crime modern only because the stories are never static; fiction you know. they change with the conventions of the times. Who was the first literary detective? . Who is your favourite crime writer? Authors of crime fiction or other genres sometimes Why? write novels and short stories very quickly in order to keep income flowing, or “to keep the pot boiling.” Called “potboilers,” they are not usually very successful, but on occasion they may wind up on the best-seller list or be made into movies that become blockbusters. The stories may contain violence, which is often directed against a spy or detective. There’s often a femme fatale who attempts to help or distracts the detective from his work. Crime fiction is known for its fascinating stories. Novels that tell stories that are so exciting that it is difficult to stop reading them are called page-turners.
    [Show full text]
  • Murder by the Book: Using Crime Fiction As a Bibliotherapeutic Resource
    Title: Murder by the book: using crime fiction as a bibliotherapeutic resource Author: Liz Brewster Postal address: Lancaster Medical School, Faculty of Health and Medicine, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YW, UK. Email: [email protected] Telephone: 015245 95018 Keywords: reading, mental health, well-being, creative therapies, literature, crime fiction Word count: 5311 Acknowledgments: The author thanks the participants in this research and Dr Barbara Sen and Dr Andrew Cox, Information School, University of Sheffield as PhD supervisors. Competing interests: None declared. Ethics approval: University of Sheffield Research Ethics Committee Funding: The original study was funded by a University of Sheffield PhD studentship 1 Murder by the book: using crime fiction as a bibliotherapeutic resource ABSTRACT Crime is a popular genre of fiction, widely read but sometimes seen as ‘throw-away’. Disregarding this type of fiction because it is seen as low-quality does not take into account its value to readers. Reading has been established as a means of improving mental health and well-being – often known as bibliotherapy. This often focuses on fiction considered to have literary merit rather than genre fiction like crime. However, in framing therapeutic reading in this way, the impact of texts considered to have low cultural value such as crime has been concealed. Examining reader responses as a starting point identifies some reasons why crime fiction fulfils a need. Readers in an empirical study spoke about the strong narrative as a distraction, the predictability as a comfort and the safe distance from events as a reassurance that left them feeling that reading crime fiction was a refuge from the world.
    [Show full text]
  • Parisian Noir
    Parisian Noir Kristin Ross riting in 1993, at the height of the “spatial turn” in cultural analysis, Rosalyn Deutsche drew our attention to the way in Wwhich the figure of the urban theorist—her examples are Edward Soja and Mike Davis—had merged with that of the private eye in noir fiction and film. Given that the city is both scene and object of noir investigation, she commented, the analogy between the detective’s disinterested search for the hidden truth of the city and the urban scholar’s critique of the capitalist city practically suggests itself.1 Deutsche does not go so far as to explicitly base her case on the centrality of one city—Los Angeles—to both the urban theory then being produced by Soja and Davis and a noir tradition that includes Raymond Chandler and Chinatown. Yet if the analogy works so seamlessly, it clearly has something to do with the way it springs unbidden from the set of representations, both written and figured, that make up an imaginary particular to Los Angeles. And it is also because an earlier subterranean migration between the two figures—a transfer of practices and point of view—had already laid the groundwork for an understanding of the detective himself as a kind of geographer, engaged in the mapping of social space. The detective as social geographer emerged in early essays by Fredric Jameson, writing about Chandler.2 The spatial paradigm provided by the meeting of Jameson, Chandler and the urban particularities of Los Angeles has largely overdetermined the way in which we read detective fiction.
    [Show full text]
  • Part One: 'Science Fiction Versus Mundane Culture', 'The Overlap Between Science Fiction and Other Genres' and 'Horror Motifs' Transcript
    Part One: 'Science Fiction versus Mundane Culture', 'The overlap between Science Fiction and other genres' and 'Horror Motifs' Transcript Date: Thursday, 8 May 2008 - 11:00AM Location: Royal College of Surgeons SCIENCE FICTION VERSUS MUNDANE CULTURE Neal Stephenson When the Gresham Professors Michael Mainelli and Tim Connell did me the honour of inviting me to this Symposium, I cautioned them that I would have to attend as a sort of Idiot Savant: an idiot because I am not a scholar or even a particularly accomplished reader of SF, and a Savant because I get paid to write it. So if this were a lecture, the purpose of which is to impart erudition, I would have to decline. Instead though, it is a seminar, which feels more like a conversation, and all I suppose I need to do is to get people talking, which is almost easier for an idiot than for a Savant. I am going to come back to this Idiot Savant theme in part three of this four-part, forty minute talk, when I speak about the distinction between vegging out and geeking out, two quintessentially modern ways of spending ones time. 1. The Standard Model If you don't run with this crowd, you might assume that when I say 'SF', I am using an abbreviation of 'Science Fiction', but here, it means Speculative Fiction. The coinage is a way to cope with the problem that Science Fiction is mysteriously and inextricably joined with the seemingly unrelated literature of Fantasy. Many who are fond of one are fond of the other, to the point where they perceive them as the same thing, in spite of the fact that they seem quite different to non-fans.
    [Show full text]
  • Bridging the Voices of Hard-Boiled Detective and Noir Crime Fiction
    Christopher Mallon TEXT Vol 19 No 2 Swinburne University of Technology Christopher Mallon Crossing shadows: Bridging the voices of hard-boiled detective and noir crime fiction Abstract This paper discusses the notion of Voice. It attempts to articulate the nature of voice in hard-boiled detective fiction and noir crime fiction. In doing so, it examines discusses how these narrative styles, particularly found within private eye novels, explores aspects of the subjectivity as the narrator- investigator; and, thus crossing and bridging a cynical, hard-boiled style and an alienated, reflective voice within a noir world. Keywords: hard-boiled detective fiction, noir fiction, voice, authenticity Introduction In crime fiction, voice is an integral aspect of the narrative. While plot, characters, and setting are, of course, also instrumental in providing a sense of authenticity to the text, voice brings a sense of verisimilitude and truth to the fiction the author employs. Thus, this paper discusses the nature of voice within the tradition of the crime fiction subgenres of noir and hard-boiled detective literature. In doing so, it examines how voice positions the protagonist; his subjectivity as the narrator-investigator; and, the nature of the hardboiled voice within a noir world. Establishing authenticity The artistic, literary, and aesthetic movement of Modernism, during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, describes a consciousness of despair, disorder, and anarchy, through ‘the intellectual conventions of plight, alienation, and nihilism’
    [Show full text]
  • The Media Assemblage: the Twentieth-Century Novel in Dialogue with Film, Television, and New Media
    THE MEDIA ASSEMBLAGE: THE TWENTIETH-CENTURY NOVEL IN DIALOGUE WITH FILM, TELEVISION, AND NEW MEDIA BY PAUL STEWART HACKMAN DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2010 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor Michael Rothberg, Chair Professor Robert Markley Associate Professor Jim Hansen Associate Professor Ramona Curry ABSTRACT At several moments during the twentieth-century, novelists have been made acutely aware of the novel as a medium due to declarations of the death of the novel. Novelists, at these moments, have found it necessary to define what differentiates the novel from other media and what makes the novel a viable form of art and communication in the age of images. At the same time, writers have expanded the novel form by borrowing conventions from these newer media. I describe this process of differentiation and interaction between the novel and other media as a “media assemblage” and argue that our understanding of the development of the novel in the twentieth century is incomplete if we isolate literature from the other media forms that compete with and influence it. The concept of an assemblage describes a historical situation in which two or more autonomous fields interact and influence one another. On the one hand, an assemblage is composed of physical objects such as TV sets, film cameras, personal computers, and publishing companies, while, on the other hand, it contains enunciations about those objects such as claims about the artistic merit of television, beliefs about the typical audience of a Hollywood blockbuster, or academic discussions about canonicity.
    [Show full text]
  • (2003) the Poetics of Deviance in Contemporary American Crime Fiction
    Gregoriou, Christiana (2003) The poetics of deviance in contemporary American crime fiction. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham. Access from the University of Nottingham repository: http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/11826/1/401540.pdf Copyright and reuse: The Nottingham ePrints service makes this work by researchers of the University of Nottingham available open access under the following conditions. · Copyright and all moral rights to the version of the paper presented here belong to the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. · To the extent reasonable and practicable the material made available in Nottingham ePrints has been checked for eligibility before being made available. · Copies of full items can be used for personal research or study, educational, or not- for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way. · Quotations or similar reproductions must be sufficiently acknowledged. Please see our full end user licence at: http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/end_user_agreement.pdf A note on versions: The version presented here may differ from the published version or from the version of record. If you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher’s version. Please see the repository url above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription. For more information, please contact [email protected] 'The Poetics of Deviance in Contemporary American Crime Fiction' by Christiana Gregoriou, BA MA Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, November 2003 'Battle of Carnival and Lent' Bruegel, Pieter the Younger Flemish Painter (b.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction to Fiction and Poetry Form, Genre, and Beyond Section Number: CRWRI-UA.815.003 Schedule: MW: 11AM - 12:15PM
    Introduction to Fiction and Poetry Form, Genre, and Beyond Section number: CRWRI-UA.815.003 Schedule: MW: 11AM - 12:15PM Instructor: Charis Caputo Email: [email protected] Phone: (773) 996-4416 Texts: The Making of a Poem: The Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms, Mark Strand and Eaven Boland, eds. Autobiography of Red, Anne Carson There Are More Beautiful Things than Beyoncé, Morgan Parker American Innovations, Rivka Galchen All other reading will be distributed as handouts and/or PDFs Objective and Methods: “Genre is a minimum-security prison” --David Shields “New ideas…often emerge in the process of negotiating the charged space between what is inherited and what is known.” -- Mark Strand and Eaven Boland What is fiction, and how is it different from poetry? How is it different from nonfiction? What is a narrative? What is “realism” and how much does it differ from “genre fiction”? Can a poem be anything and can anything be a poem? Why do poetic “forms” exist, and are they outdated? Some of these might seem like obvious questions, but in fact, they’re all questions worth discussing, questions without straightforward answers. The process of becoming better writers, of exploring the possibilities of our own creativity, involves striving to discern both how and why we write, both as individuals and as participants in a culture with certain demands, assumptions, and inherited traditions. In this class, we will write, edit, and critique each other’s work, and as a necessary part of learning how to do so, we will also have readings and discussions about the craft of poetry and fiction.
    [Show full text]