Detecting texts [[electronic resource] ] : the metaphysical detective story from Poe to postmodernism / / edited by Patricia Merivale and Susan Elizabeth Sweeney

• Pubblicazione: Philadelphia, : University of Pennsylvania Press, c1999
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (320 p.)
• Disciplina: 809.3/872/0904
• Soggetto topico: Detective and mystery stories - History and criticism; Experimental fiction - History and criticism; Fiction - 20th century - History and criticism; Metaphysics in literature; Fiction - Technique
• Altri autori: MerivalePatricia SweeneySusan Elizabeth <1958->
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references (p. [273]-283) and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- The Games Afoot -- Chapter 1. Mysteries We Reread, Mysteries of Rereading -- Chapter 2. Borgess Library of Forking Paths -- Chapter 3. (De)feats of Detection -- Chapter 4. Gumshoe Gothics -- Chapter 5. Work of the Detective, Work of the Writer -- Chapter 6. “The Question Is the Story Itself” -- Chapter 7. Reader-Investigators in the Post-Nouveau Roman -- Chapter 8. “A Thousand Other Mysteries” -- Chapter 9. Postmodernism and the Monstrous Criminal -- Chapter 10. Detecting Identity in Time and Space -- Chapter 11. ”Premeditated Crimes” -- Chapter 12. “Subject-Cases” and “Book-Cases” -- Suggestions for Further Reading -- Contributors -- Index
• Sommario/riassunto: Although readers of detective fiction ordinarily expect to learn the mystery's solution at the end, there is another kind of detective story—the history of which encompasses writers as diverse as Poe, Borges, Robbe-Grillet, Auster, and Stephen King—that ends with a question rather than an answer. The detective not only fails to solve the crime, but also confronts insoluble mysteries of interpretation and identity. As the contributors to Detecting Texts contend, such stories belong to a distinct genre, the "metaphysical detective story," in which the detective hero's inability to interpret the mystery inevitably casts doubt on the reader's similar attempt to make sense of the text and the world.Detecting Texts includes an introduction by the editors that defines the metaphysical detective story and traces its history from Poe's classic tales to today's postmodernist experiments. In addition to the editors, contributors include Stephen Bernstein, Joel Black, John T. Irwin, Jeffrey T. Nealon, and others.
• Titolo autorizzato: Detecting texts
• ISBN: 1-283-21237-4; 9786613212375; 0-8122-0545-6
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Record Nr.: 9910781884503321
• Lo trovi qui: Univ. Federico II