ENGL 265-02, Criminal Fictions, Spring 2008

Abstract

This course considers literature’s fascination with criminality and forms of transgression over the last 200 years. It offers students the chance to develop a historical understanding of the formal and thematic movements in literary fiction, while at the same time noting how literature uses crime to interrogate its own ‘legitimate’ identities. Our program will move from the early nineteenth century, where criminals become the heroes of popular romance, into the complexities of late nineteenth-century crime: artistic genius as criminal mastermind, the emergence of aesthetic ‘disinterestedness’ and the twin developments of law and literature (resulting in a formalized ‘detective fiction’). Finally, we will also look at modern crime fiction, with its generic formulas and diversifications.