The course studies the evolution of the detective novel from Edgar Allan Poe and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to the present. It examines the genre’s presentation of 19th century society’s image of civility, propriety, and stability which the detective supports with his wits and moral authority. The course traces the genre’s evolution through the 20th century’s increasing incivility and instability against which the detective now often a knight errant struggles with increasingly compromised moral success. The divergent strains of American and British detective fiction will be compared.
Prerequisite Courses