Masaryk University in Brno

MASARYK UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF EDUCATION Department of English Language and Literature The Spy Novel in English Literature Diploma Thesis Brno 2010 Supervisor: Written by: PhDr.Pavel Doležel, CSc. Leona Buzrlová Prohlášení: Prohlašuji, že jsem na mé diplomové práci pracovala samostatně a použila jsem pouze ty zdroje, které jsou uvedeny v bibliografii. Souhlasím, aby tato diplomová práce byla uložena v Informačním systému Masarykovy univerzity, případně v knihovně Pedagogické fakulty, a sloužila tak akademickým účelům. Declaration: I declare that I worked on my diploma thesis on my own and I used only the sources listed in the bibliography. I agree with this diploma thesis being deposited in the Information System of the Masaryk University, eventually in the Library of the Faculty of Education, and with its being taken advantage for academic purposes. Brno, 17 April 2010 Leona Buzrlová 2 Acknowledgement: I would like to express my very sincere thanks to PhDr. Pavel Doležel, CSc. for providing me with many pieces of great advice, bringing me in many useful ideas, and supporting me throughout the whole course of my writing. 3 CONTENT 1. Introduction: The aim of the thesis..........................................................5 - 8 2. The purpose of espionage.........................................................................9 - 13 3. The first novels with crime elements and their development...............14 - 17 3.1. The Newgate novel...........................................................................17 - 21 3.2. The sensation novel...........................................................................21 - 22 3.3. The main difference between the Newgate and sensation novel..................................................................................................22 - 23 3.4. The other novelists and authors of the Victorian era........................23 - 26 4. The spy novel in English literature.........................................................27 4.1. The first spy novels and their authors...............................................27 - 30 4.2. The glamorising of spy novel............................................................30 - 33 4.3. The novel of adventure.....................................................................33 - 37 4.4. The deglamorising of spy novel........................................................37 - 41 5. The postwar period of spy novel.............................................................42 5.1. Ian Fleming.......................................................................................42 - 44 5.2. Other postwar spy novelists..............................................................44 - 48 5.3. The post-war American espionage authors.......................................48 - 51 6. The typical feature of a spy hero............................................................52 - 53 6.1. James Bond phenomenon.................................................................53 - 56 6.2. The characters of villains in a spy novel...........................................56 - 57 6.3. Villains in spy novel with James Bond.............................................57 - 60 7. The books with spy plot...........................................................................61 7.1. Casino Royale (1953)........................................................................61 - 64 7.2. Funeral in Berlin (1964)....................................................................65 - 67 7.3. The Tailor of Panama ( 1996)............................................................67 - 71 8. Conclussion..............................................................................................72 - 74 9. Resumè.....................................................................................................75 10. Bibliography.............................................................................................76 - 81 4 1. Introduction: The aims of the thesis This diploma thesis, carrying title The spy novel in English literature is concerned with the literary genre of spy fiction – sometimes called political thriller or spy thriller which came into existence before World War I at about the same time when the first modern intelligence agencies started to appear. The whole body of the diploma thesis is divided into several chapters which deal with the theme of spy novel. Each single chapter contains its own theme connected with the main theme of the diploma thesis, which all together give a general view of the nature and development of this literary genre. The first introductory chapter is connected with the aim of my diploma thesis. As the result of my diploma theses I decided to collect the most important information concerning spy fiction and to give to a reader of my diploma thesis a general view of this genre, its rise, nature, features, development and examples of the authors who represent spy fiction. The second chapter of the diploma thesis will be dedicated to the historical background of spying and to the purpose of espionage. The beginning of spying is associated with the ancient civilization, through information on the spying in Old England and finishing with modern espionage using the latest techniques and equipment. The significance of spying itself in military matters has been namely recognized since the recorded history, and spies are as old as history as well. In this chapter the main emphasis will be placed on the explanation of the word “espionage” and its meaning. Spying is presented not only as a negative but also as a positive activity which can save human lives. Spying can help make the world safer, especially in time of terrorism, regional instability, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, white slavery and illicit traffic of drugs. The third chapter of the diploma thesis deals with the beginning of crime fiction, whose roots can be seen in so called Newgate novels which played a very important role in English literature and which influenced the development of many other literary genres, especially the development of such later genres as the sensational novel and the detective novel are. Most Newgate novels drew their inspiration from the Newgate Calendar, a published biography of famous criminals, which were described as the sympathetic heroes in crime literature before the end of the nineteenth century. Newgate 5 novels were written by male authors. In contrast to the Newgate novels, the sensational novels did not picture the criminal world but they rather featured the seamy sides of respectable or noble society and their plots depicted the criminal deeds. Within this chapter I pay attention to the main differences between the Newgate and sensational novel. The conclusion of the chapter is dedicated to the novelists and authors of the Victorian era like Reynolds and his Mysteries of London, Thackeray´s novel called Catherine Hayes which is considered to be Thackeray´s attack on Newgate novels, but in the matter of fact it is often accepted as a Newgate novel itself. The focus is put also on such authors like George Eliot, Mrs. Gaskell, Anthony Trollope or Thomas Hardy who did not glamorize the crime, but they saw it in his realistic substance, Trollope even with a light scent of satire. The fourth chapter contains information concerning the rise of the spy novel in English literature, the first spy novels and their authors like James Fenimore Cooper, known for his tales of the early frontier or Erskiene Robert Childers with his novel Riddle of the Sands. The attention is also paid to the predecessors to twentieth–century detective and espionage fiction, which were Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens. Within this chapter, as well as Edgar Allan Poe is worth of mentioning as the inventor of the detective story, appreciated for his tale of mystery. The second part of the fourth chapter puts emphasis on the explanation of the international relations in the world and feeling of national insecurity, which both related to the period called the Great Game based on the rivalry between Great Britain and Russia. The rise of spy novel before WWI can be then connected with such a significant feeling of national insecurity in time of changing international relations, which leads to the fact that spies are presented in a way of glamorizing. This glamorizing of a British spy was visible even in popular press. The thesis points out that at the turn of the century the interest of the public concentrates on Germany and Russia, and a new stream of espionage based on imagination rather than on true life began to appear around that time. On the one hand there were writers like William Tufner Le Queux who glamorised their spies, and on other hand there was another group of authors who deglamorised them and saw them as normal human beings with their mistakes - Josef Conrad ranks among such the authors. Le Queux put a big emphasis on the spying based on imagination. The attention is paid also to Walter Wood whose works contain elements of xenophobia, especially in his book The Enemy in our Midst, or to E. Phillip Oppenheim´s novel The Great Impersonation and also to baroness Emma Orczy who is remembered as the author of 6 Scarlet Pimpernel. As well as adventure novels can not be left out from this chapter because they influenced spy novel and some of their elements can be seen in them. Moreover, adventure novels often have tendency to blend with other genres, especially with crime novels, spy novels, war novels, fantasy

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