This document provides an overview of the history of literary crime fiction presented in an English literature course. It discusses early works like Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" as the first detective story. It then covers categories like early crime narratives from the Bible and classics, revenge tragedies from Elizabethan drama, Gothic hauntings in 18th century novels, organized crime emerging in 1920s prohibition stories, and Michel Foucault's discussion of punishment and surveillance in "Discipline and Punish." The document poses questions about this evolving genre and its reflection of changing social attitudes towards crime over history.

1. ENGL 211, Summer 2010 WEEK 1 A History of Literary Crime

2. ENGL 211, Summer 2010 “When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.” -- crime + detective novelist Raymond Chandler, on writing fiction

3. ENGL 211, Summer 2010 “The evolution of the crime story reflects the history of crime itself” -- Ernest Mandel, Delightful Murder: A Social History of the Crime Story

4. ENGL 211, Summer 2010 Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841) – first detective story

5. ENGL 211, Summer 2010 crime fiction detective fiction

6. ENGL 211, Summer 2010 crime fiction v. detective fiction (“puzzle element”)

7. ENGL 211, Summer 2010 I. Early Crime Narratives

12. Cain leads Abel to Death by James Tissot(1836-1902) Cain and Abel, story of “first murder”

14. ENGL 211, Summer 2010 II. Crime and Revenge

16. end of the 16th – beginning

18. ENGL 211, Summer 2010 - Subject of revenge meets a bloody death, either by execution or by his/her own hand, in anticipation of being caught

20. (1st century), originator of the revenge tragedy

21. violence off-stage, unlike the Elizabethean theatre

23. ENGL 211, Summer 2010 III. “Gothic” Hauntings

24. ENGL 211, Summer 2010 The gothic novel (late 18th century): return of the past into the present, especially in the form of ghosts or supernatural events

25. ENGL 211, Summer 2010 “gothic” tradition: provides a narrative frame for “crime” as the return of a repressed wrong of the past into the world of the present

26. ENGL 211, Summer 2010

27. ENGL 211, Summer 2010 IV. Organized Crime + Criminals

28. ENGL 211, Summer 2010 1920’s prohibition-era gangsters, shift in fiction away from the individual criminal

29. ENGL 211, Summer 2010 The Godfather Scarface Goodfellas The Sopranos Grand Theft Auto

30. ENGL 211, Summer 2010 V. Discipline and Punish

31. ENGL 211, Summer 2010 Michel Foucault French Philosopher, critical theorist, historian,writer of Discipline and Punish (1975)

32. ENGL 211, Summer 2010

33. ENGL 211, Summer 2010 Classical society – pre 19th century, punishment Disciplinary society – post-19th century, surveillance

34. ENGL 211, Summer 2010 “The Newgate Calendar” Stories - popular between 1750-1850 - Sensationalized tales of crime and punishment

35. ENGL 211, Summer 2010

36. ENGL 211, Summer 2010 “Who is the bigger criminal: he who robs a bank or he who founds one?” -- playwright and Marxist Bertolt Brecht, The Threepenny Opera (1928)

37. ENGL 211, Summer 2010 Questions