Gothic elements in contemporary detective story : Matthew Gregory Lewis and Minette Walters compared

On gothic cathedrals and contemporary science.

The gothic cathedral is a spectacular achievement of the European Middle Ages. Architecturally, these buildings incorporated revolutionary innovations both in the aesthetics of their design and in their construction. Comparing them to the earlier Romanesque cathedrals, one can observe that the semicircular window arches were substituted with pointed ones. Underneath, the entire weight distribut...

"classic Detective Story Plot" 1 from "the Formula of the Classical Detective Story"

The changing cultural mythology of crime has given rise to many different popular formulas. Some of these have been essentially adventure stories or melodramas, but one of the most striking embodies the cultural mythology of detectives, criminals, police, and suspects in an archetypal form that is almost pure mystery. The classical or ratiocinative detective story was first clearly articulated ...

Plants and Animals in Antiquity: a Detective Story

The title “Plants and Man in Antiquity” might suggest that I will be talking of such topics as plants in mythology in ancient Greece and Rome, sacred plants, plants and literature, and plants and collective imaginary. This is not the case, however. I will discuss a much less poetic topic, probably much more similar to the science the Academy and its Fellows and Members are interested in: the sc...

Detecting Doctrines: The Case Method and the Detective Story

The Case of Mór Jókai and the Detective Story

While from the viewpoint of typology it is often stated that the genre of detective fiction originated with the work of Edgar Allan Poe, this statement can be challenged from the standpoint of literary or reception history. Several recent histories of detective fiction emphasize the importance of employing a wider generic view, yet they hardly expand their perspective beyond English literary tr...