PLEASE READ THE INSTRUCTION PLEASE… PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU READ
THE THREE LECTURE ASSING IT PLEASE
Foundational Authors and
two key forms of the genre: while you read the short stories pay
attention to the detectives and female characters, we will be focusing
on their contribution to the genre, and also on plot development. The
third reading is an essay that discusses and compares the
characteristics of the classical model (the original form of the genre
in the mid 19th century) and the hardboiled variant (we will focus on
this form in this class) developed after the 1920s in the US and other
countries. In this course we will focus on the hardboiled variant, but
it is important to know about the original/classical stories of
detection.
A-Read or Listen to “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”.
The Classic Detective Story. See links in “course materials”. (this one
starts a little slow, but once some of the old conventions of the
Classical genre are met, the story moves forward faster and takes
interesting turns). Remember that you have the option of listening to
it.
B- Read Slippery Fingers and Crooked Souls. Hardboiled
Detective Fiction. Focus on the figure of the detective and the plot.
These are stories by Hammett (we will read a novel by him next week). In
these and others stories he develops the figure of the hardboiled
private detective and the hardboiled formula. Hammett is not the only
one contributing to develop this type of stories, but his “Continental
OP stories”, more than two dozens, contributed greatly to the hardboiled
genre of detective fiction. Also in course materials.
C- Read
the essay about the classical and hardboiled variants, find it in course
materials listed as DF Classical and Hardboiled. When you open the link
it says The Hardboiled Detective Story but it discusses the Classical
too. It is a good introduction and uses the two examples/readings that
we are using this week. Reading ALERT: this reading include some
spoilers about The Maltese Falcon (a novel we will read), just be
careful and skip those sentences or paragraphs.
The stories you
read for this week are precursors to the genres and subgenres that came
later. Edgar A. Poe did not know that he was writing and developing the
principal elements of what later become the “Classical Detective story”
and the foundations of a new genre. Hammett did not know that he was
developing the hardboiled detective in the stories you read; later in
The Maltese Falcon next week, we will see that hardboiled formula (the
detective and the story) fully developed at least in the context of the
times. If you have some experience reading contemporary detective
fiction you know that other writers went beyond what Hammett wrote in
the following decades, but he developed the key elements during these
years. In this class, we focus on the hardboiled formula but I wanted to
give you a little about the original/classical form developed by Poe.
The essay assigned for this week is very important to get a better
understanding of these two forms.
TASK 1: Your response
is DUE JUNE 21 before midnight . After reading the three stories
assigned: compare and contrast the characterizations of the detective
figure in these narrations and their methods of solving crimes. To do
this provide examples from the readings and discuss them.
Your
entry/response must be at least 400-500 words. You must also
reply to at least two classmates in order to create a discussion, these
replies can be short or long, but make sure to try to add something
valuable to the conversation.
https://poestories.com/text.php?file=murders
https://librivox.org/the-murders-in-the-rue-morgue-by-edgar-allen-poe/
