The Poetics of Murder: Detective Fiction and Literary Theory

410 Pages·1983·119.146 MB·English

by  Glenn W. Most, William W. Stowe

Detective Fiction and Literary Theory
EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
GLENN W. MOST WILLIAM W. STOWE
AND
0
HARCOURT BRACE JOVANOVICH, PUBLISHERS
SAN DIEGO NEW YORK LONDON
Copyriaht © 1983 by Glenn W. MOit and William W. Stowe
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in
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NY 10017.
Grateful acknowledgement is hereby givm for pea o-ink,n to reprint the following
worb:
Roger Callois. II "Le roman policier: jeu" of IV "Pl1i111nces du roman," reprinted
from Approclaa dt l'lmaginain by pe1inission of F.ditions Gallimard. © Editions
Gallimard 1974.
Geraldine Pederson-Krag, "Detective Stories and the Primal Scene. .. reprinted from
TM Psychoanalytic Qa,arttrly 18, 1949 by pea ,uitsion of Tlat Psycltoanalytic 0,ulrttrl1.
Jacques Lacan, "'Seo1inar on 'The Purloined Letter;., translated with introductory
notes by Jdl'rey Mehlman, reprinted from Yalt Fnnch StMdits by pescuiaioo of Yalt
Fnncla Studits. No. 48, 1973 © 1973 by Yale Fnnch Studia.
Ernst Kaemmel, "Literatur untcrm Tisch. Der Detektivrornan und ,ein psellachaft
licher Auftrag." reprinted from Nt11t DftltJclat Uttratur 10, 1962 by pea;omion. of
BUro fur Urbebaru:hte, Oea•O•n Democratic Republic.© Hanna Kaemmel, DDR
Berlin, 1962.
Richard Alewyn, "Der Unprung des Detektivromans," reprinted from Probltmt
und Gntalttn by pe1uadlion of Imel Verlag.© Imel Verlag Frankfurt am Main 1974.
Helmut Hcissenbiittel, ""Spielrqeln des Kriminalromana," reprinted from Aa,foiitu
n,r Littrat11r, by pe1 ,ndlion of the author.
Umberto F.co, 0 Narrative Structures in Fleming." reprinted from Tlat Rolt of Tlat
Rtadtr: Exploratioru in tht ~miotics of Tuts, translated by R. A. Downie, by permis
sion of Indiana Univenity Presa.
Roland Barthes, Section XXXII '"Delay" and Section XXXVII 0 The Hermeneutic
Sentence," reprinted from SIZ translated by Richard Miller, by pea aoinion of Hill and
Wang, a division of Farrar. Straus and Giroux, Inc. and by peammion of Jonathan
Cape Limited on behalf of the Estate of Roland Bartbes. Translation copyright © 1974
by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc.
F. R. Jameson, .. On Raymond Chandler,'' reprinted from Soutlttm Rnirw 6 (1970)
by pea ,nission of the author.
Michael Holquist, .. Whodunit and Other Questions: Metaphysical Detective Stories
in P01t-War Fiction," reprinted from New Uttrary HiJtory 3 (1971-1972) by peamis
sion of Johns Hopkins University Press.
f!' ()
.J ~ •
f ;
~ ~
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3. --
~' # •• ~ - .::
Frank Ko made, .. Novel and Nanative," reprinted from Tla«Jry of the NoHI: New
E.aays. edited by John Halperin, by pdlltission of Oxford University Presa. Copyright
© 1974 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
Steven Marcus. "Introduction" to The Continental Op by Dashiell Hammett re
printed by pc11uission of the author.
Geoffrey H. Hartman, .. Literature High and Low: Tht Case ,;,f the Mystery Story,"
reprinted from The Fate of R«ulin1 and Other Essays by permission of The University
of Chicago Press. Copyright © l 97S by the University of Chicago, and by pd ani:won
of Tire New York Review of Books. Copyright © 1972 Nyrev, Inc.
Alben D. Hutter, "Dreams, Transformations and Literature: The Implications of
Detective Fiction," reprinted from Victorian Studies 19 ( 1975) b) pd 111ission of Victo
rian Studies and the Trustees of Indiana University.
Stephen Knight, .. •. . . some men come up'- the Detective appears." reprinted from
Form and ld«Jlo,y in Crime Fiction by permission of Indiana University Press and by
pd niiuion of Macmillan, London and Basingstoke.
Dennis Poner, .. Backward Construction and the An of Suspense," reprinted from
The PMnuit of Crime by permission of Yale University Press. Copyright © 1981 by
Yale University.
Library of Conaress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
The Poetics of murder.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
l. Detective and mystery stories History and
criticism-Addresses, essays. lectures. I. Most,
Glenn W. II. Stowe, William W., l946-
PN3448.D4PS4 1983 809.3'872 82-23429
ISBN 0-15-172280-3
ISBN 0-15-672312-3 (A Harvest/HBJ book : pbk.)
Designed by Jacqueline Schuman
Printed in the United States of America
Fint edition
ABCDE

CONTENTS
Introduction xi
Roger Caillois, The Detective Novel u Game 1
Geraldine Pederson-Krag, Detective Stories and the Primal Scene \/
13
V
Jacques Lacan, Sa11inar on ''The Purloined Letter'' 21
Ernst Kaemmel, Literature under the Table: The Detective Novel and
its Social Mission 55,J V
Richard A.lewyn, The Origin of the Detective Novel 62
Helmut Heissenbuttet Rules of the Game of the Crime Novel 79
Umberto Eco, Narrative Structures in Fleming 93 V
'
,·
Roland Bartha, Delay and The Het 111eneutic Sentence 118 ~.,
F. R. Jamaon, On Raymond Chandler 122 V
Holquist, Whodunit and Other Questions: Metaphysical De
✓Michael
tective Stories in Postwar Fiction 149
Frank Kermode, Novel and Narrative 175
Stnen Marcus, Dashiell Hammett 197
Geoffrey H. Hartman, Literature High and Low: The Case of the '✓
Mystery Story 210
Albert D. Hutter, Dreams, Transformations, and Literature: The Im
plications of Detective Fiction 230
Da,id I. Grouw,gel, Agatha Christie: Containment of the Unknown
252
/Stephen Knight, ''. .. some men come up''-the Detective appears
266
V
D. A. Miller, The Novel and the Police 299
Dennis Porter, Backward Construction and the Art of Suspense 32 7
Carre
Glenn W. Most, The Hippocratic Smile: John le and the Tradi-
tions of the Detective Novel 341
••• CONTENTS
VIII
William W. Stowe, From Semiotics to Het 111eneutics: Modes of De-
tection in Doyle and Chandler 366
Source References 385
Suggestions for Further Reading 387
Index 389
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book would not exist without the help of a large number of
individuals and institutions. Howard Sandum and his staff at Har
court Brace Jovanovich have been most helpful, as have the staffs of
the English Department at Wesleyan (especially Janice Guarino) and
the Clauics Department at Princeton. The resources of the Princeton,
Wesleyan, and New York Univenity libraries have been put variously
at our disposal, as have those of the Research Division of the New
York Public Library. Many of the writen here have contributed more
to the project than the simple permission to reprint their work. And
our friends and colleagues Karin A. Trainer, Richard H. Brodhead,
K.hachig Tololyan, Charles Larmore, and many others have been
generous with support and advice. Much of the cost of typing and
photocopying, finally, has been borne by our respective universities.

INTRODUCTION
The Golden Age of the detective novel is over, we are told, and so is
the Golden Age of detective criticism. Chandler and Hammett are
dead, and Sayers and Christie, and both halves of Ellery Queen. Some
forty years have passed since W. H. Auden made his celebrated pitch
for detective novels as profane replays of the Christian drama of guilt,
confession, and atonement and since Edmund Wilson likened reading
them to unpacking ''large crates by swallowing the excelsior in order
to find at the bottom a few bent and rusty nails.'' Meanwhile, though
a large number of detective titles continue to be published every year,
the pre-TV days of the ''whodunit'' as mass entertainment and intel
lectual couse celebre are dead and gone. Hercule Poirot, Lord Peter
Wimsey, the Continental Op, Philip Marlowe, and even such latecom
ers as Inspector Maigret, have all taken their places with Strephon and
Amaryllis as emblems of a golden time.
But myths require revisions, and new traditions arise fron1 the ashes
of the old. While scholars are most usefully engaged in preserving and
anthologizing the past, novelists and critics even novelists and crit
ics of detective fiction go on writing, making it new, as Pound
counseled, and making it strange, as the R11ssian Formalists advised.
Just as poetry and its criticism-and, incidentally, sheep raising
survived the Golden Age that was already long gone when Theocritus
and Virgil sang, so, too, detective fiction and its criticism-and, inci
dentally, murder are thriving today, when the slouch hat and the
sleek roadst~ have gone the way of the shepherd's crook. When, in
the title of a famous attack on the genre, &lmund Wilson asked,
''Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?'' he thought the answer
''No one''- was self-evident. History has proved him wrong; millions
of readers continue to care who killed whom in thousands of detective
novels, both old and new.
Furthe111iore, the criticism of detective fiction has never been
healthier or more wide ranging than it is today. Taking advantage of
their popularity, their relative simplicity, and their clear position as
a model for many other kinds of narrative, contemporary literary
••
INTRODUCTION
XII
critics and theorists have used detective novels u test cases and
examples for all sorts of literary speculation, from investigations of
narrative techniques to discussions of the social function of literature,
its psychological effects, and the philosophical systems it anumes or
promotes. These novels have come to be seen as conte111porary folk
tales, cultural documents par excellence, and prime illustrations of ·
mental and social processes.
This book brings together some of the most important studies of
detective fiction to have been published in the last forty years. Rather
than reprint the elastic essays of the prewar years, we have chosen to
assume that these studies are well known to most readers and have
provided a bibliography for those who need to search then1 out. Here
we have reprinted only more recent work. Most of it has been pub
lished before, but none of it has been easily and affordably available
to readers, scholars, and students in college courses.
The emphasis in these essays is different, too, from what would have
been the emphasis in an anthology of classic pieces The earlier studies
often were essentially attacks on the detective novel's pretensions or
defenses of its literary merit. The debate on these issues continues;
questions about the genre's value persist despite any number of claims
to have answered them once and for all. But for the most part the
articles collected here tend to put such questions to one side. Instead},
they start from the obvious and indisputable fact of the popularity of
detective fiction and ask, ''Why?'' Depending on the kind of answers
they give, they can be arranged roughly into three groups.
__
The first of !h~phasiua the relati<>n of-d~tivc ~~tiQn_to_the
.,_
art of storytelling, to ••n~_r:ratiyity_" as it Js-All~, the structure of_
of
stories and the nature narration. In its essence, the deteciwenovel
Nfueties··or
1s almost pure narrative. setting and characterization add
charm, it is true, but the real power of the genre d~tjy~Jr;~m its
-an4_
Qf..l.hewayu_ltcy cao
manipulation of stories ktold, Some ·dctec
five are
ltOi ieS all. ..p. lot, intricately woven tissues of causes and effects,
coincidenca and missed chances, that challenge the reader by their
complexity. Others focus more on the telling, teasing their readcn out
of thought and patience by limiting the na-r-r-a-tive po-in-t o-f v-iew and
'
-----
controlling the rhythm and teiiipo of "tne exposition. As a resu1t,
defeclive noveTsnave provtaed ideal material1orineorists of plot and
of narration.