One of the favorite genres of literary works for many readers in our country is a detective story.
Detective (from English detective, from Latin detego - I reveal, expose) is a cinematic or literary genre. The works of this genre consistently describe events that ultimately lead to the clarification of all circumstances and the disclosure of the mysteries of the mysterious case. In most detective novels, a mysterious incident refers to a murder or theft. They are a kind of catalyst that starts the whole mechanism of further events.
Detective could not exist without criminals of various stripes: thieves, deceivers, maniacs, murderers. After all, it is they who “help” the authors of literary works to draw interesting plots and unusual stories not only from their imagination, but also from everyday life.
The history of the emergence and development of the detective genre
founder detective stories considered to be Edgar Allan Poe. It was in his works that the reader was first able to enjoy a brilliant plot, which was based on a mysterious incident - a crime. The works of Edgar Allan Poe, in which the author introduces us to the detective Dupin, laid the foundation for further development this literary genre around the world. The famous books of Edgar Alan Poe include The Secret of Marie Roger (1843), The Stolen Letter (1845), Murder in the Rue Morgue (1841).
To be fair, it should be noted that the elements detective genre were present in the works of other authors. For example, these are the novels by W. Collins "Moonstone", "The Woman in White", which were wildly popular in the 60s of the 19th century.
Some authors mixed the detective genre with other literary movements. For example, the American writer Anderson Cooper in his children's books talked about the life of the Indians. It is noteworthy that the author similarly described how the heroes of his books pursued their victim, what signs they paid attention to: a stump overgrown with moss, a broken bush, footprints on the ground, etc. 
A significant contribution to the development of the world detective genre was made by Charles Dickens. Several works of this author were devoted to the detective case. For example, in his magazine The Household Word, Dickens published a series of articles whose main topic was the work of the detectives of that time.
Another author who has made a significant contribution to the development of the detective genre is Arthur Conan Doyle. The first work that had a strong effect on readers is "Study in crimson colors". It was followed by a series of short stories dedicated to the life and work of one of the most famous detectives of all time - Sherlock Holmes.
The development of the genre led to the emergence of scientific and medical detective subgenres. For example, the writer T.L. Mead in 1902 publishes the book The Sorceress of the Strand, in which the author describes in detail the questions medicine: murder with the help of x-rays and hydrocyanic acid, as well as somnambulism, hypnosis, etc.
In 1920, Agatha Christie's first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was published. Soon there will not be a single person in the world who would not be familiar with the smartest detective Hercule Poirot and the noble Miss Marple. The works of Agatha Christie have rightfully won their leadership in world cinema. During the years of perestroika, domestic readers enthusiastically plunged into Magic world detective.
Later, works by Russian authors appear: Marinina, Shilova, Dontsova, etc. Each of the writers has her own own style. D. Dontsova writes in the genre of an ironic detective story. Quite realistic series come out from Marinina's pen, which allows her books to be wildly popular.
I would like to note that detective stories will always be popular, regardless of time. Each reader decides for himself what genre (classical or modern) he prefers!
detective fiction translation
Before proceeding to a direct consideration of the features of the detective genre, it is necessary to clearly define the subject of analysis - the detective.
Detective (eng. detective, from lat. detego - I reveal, expose) - a literary genre whose works describe the process of investigating a mysterious incident in order to clarify its circumstances and solve the riddle. Usually, a crime acts as such an incident, and the detective describes its investigation and identification of the perpetrators, in which case the conflict is built on a clash of justice with lawlessness, culminating in the victory of justice.
N.N. Volsky in his book Mysterious Logic. The detective story as a model of dialectical thinking" gives its definition of the detective genre: "A detective story is a literary work in which, on everyday material accessible to a wide range of readers, an act of dialectical removal of a logical contradiction (solution of a detective riddle) is demonstrated. The need for a logical contradiction in the detective story, the thesis and antithesis of which are equally true, is due to some characteristics detective genre - its hyperdetermination, hyperlogicality, the absence of random coincidences and errors.
S.S. Van Dyne, in his Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories, describes the detective as follows: “The detective story is a kind of intellectual game. It is more - it is a sporting event. “Detective is a kind of intellectual game. Moreover, this is a sports competition.
The main advantage of a detective novel lies in the presence in it of a new, rather complex and fascinating riddle, the disclosure of which is the main driving force behind the development of the detective story. As Jerzy Siwierski, a Polish literary critic who is professionally engaged in the study of detective literature, writes: “The value of a detective story as an exciting read most often comes down to the mystery it contains. If we give the future reader the main intrigue of those books that we are talking about, we will take 90% of his pleasure from reading.
Nevertheless, in order to avoid possible misunderstandings and clarify the boundaries of the genre under study, it is apparently worth emphasizing two points. Firstly, it is impossible to consider the presence of a crime in him as the main sign of a detective. Indeed, a detective story is usually based on solving a crime, and in most detective stories it plays very important role. But the elevation of its presence to a sign that is obligatory for a detective and distinguishes him from others literary genres, does not withstand the collision with the facts. By adopting this definition, a third of all the works of the world classical literature, including Greek tragedies and romantic ballads, would have to be included in the category of detective stories, which is clearly meaningless. On the other hand, not all detective stories contain a crime in the plot. For example, in the collection "Notes on Sherlock Holmes" of eighteen stories that belong to the detective genre, in five stories (that is, more than a quarter) there are no crimes. Therefore, we have to conclude that the presence of a crime cannot be regarded as mandatory and, moreover, as a distinguishing feature of a detective.
Secondly, it should be noted that the detective story is often confused with genres built on completely different principles, but somewhat similar to the detective story. Such similarities may lie in the material on which the narrative is built, and in plot features(such as the unexpectedness and dynamism of plot twists, the presence of a crime, the participation of detectives and police officers, the atmosphere of mystery, fear, the presence of chase scenes, fights, etc.), often found in detective stories, but also characteristic of other genres: police novel, adventure (adventure) novel, thriller. The only way to distinguish a detective story from this mass of works is to ask: “Is there a mystery here? What will be left of the plot if you remove the riddle or give a clue on the first page? If there is no mystery, or it does not play a decisive role in the plot, the work in question is not a detective story. What can be considered a mystery in a detective story? The simple absence of information about something cannot be considered a mystery. For example, we do not know who lives in the next house, but there is no mystery in this. In the same way, if the corpse of a murdered person is found on the street, and it is not known who killed him, what are the motives for the crime, this ignorance in itself is not a mystery. But if this corpse is found with a knife in the back in a room locked from the inside, a mystery, and a rather complicated one, is evident. Also, do not forget that only that which has a clue can be considered a riddle. At the end of the detective, all riddles must be solved and the clues must match the riddles.
Thirdly, the solution must require some work of thought, logical thinking. When reading an ideal detective story, the reader should be more or less clearly aware of what the riddle is and have all the information necessary to solve it. But the answer to the riddle must be contained in this information in a hidden, encrypted form, otherwise we have nothing to "guess" about and the answer to the question cannot be considered a clue. But if there is no clue, then there was no mystery. This condition is strictly fulfilled in the classical detective story. In Conan Doyle's stories, Sherlock Holmes, Watson, and the reader have all the information they need to solve the riddle, but it requires a certain effort of thought that only one of these three individuals can do.
In addition to the main feature that defines the genre - the presence of a mystery - the construction of a detective story has three more characteristic features:
a) Immersion in everyday life
It is difficult to build a detective story on material that is exotic to the reader. The reader should have a good understanding of the "norm" (the situation, the motives of the characters' behavior, the set of those habits and conventions that are associated with the social roles of the detective characters, the rules of decency, etc.), and, consequently, deviations from it - strangeness, incongruity.
b) Stereotypical character behavior
Psychology, emotions of the characters are standard, their individuality is not emphasized, it is erased. The characters are largely devoid of identity - they are not so much personalities as social roles. The same applies to the motives of the characters (in particular, the motives of the crime), the more impersonal the motive, the more suitable it is for the detective. Therefore, the predominant motive for the crime is money, since any individuality in this motive is erased: everyone needs money, they are the equivalent of any human need.
c) Availability special rules plot construction - unwritten "laws of the detective genre"
Although they are not declared in the works, but after reading a few “good”, i.e. well-constructed detective stories, the reader intuitively knows them and considers any violation of them as fraud on the part of the author, failure to comply with the rules of the game. An example of such a law is the prohibition of some characters from being a criminal. The killer cannot be the narrator, investigator, close relatives of the victim, priests, statesmen high rank. For the narrator and the detective, this prohibition is unconditional; for other characters, the author can remove it, but then he must openly declare this in the course of the story, directing the reader's suspicions to this character.
These three features characteristic of the detective genre can be combined into one, they all serve as a manifestation of the hyperdeterminism of the world described in the detective story, compared to the world in which we live. AT real world we may encounter exotic personalities and situations whose meaning we do not understand, the motives of real crimes are often irrational, the priest may turn out to be the leader of the gang, but in a detective story such plot decisions would be perceived as a violation of the laws of the genre. The world of the detective is much more ordered than the life around us. To build a detective riddle, a rigid network of undoubted, unshakable patterns is needed, on which the reader can rely with full confidence in their truth. Since there are fewer solid patterns in the real world than is usually required to build a detective story, they are introduced from the outside by mutual agreement of the authors with the readers, as well-known rules of the game.
Another feature of the detective genre is that the true circumstances of the incident are not communicated to the reader, at least in their entirety, until the investigation is completed. The reader is led by the author through the process of unraveling, having the opportunity at each stage to build their own versions, based on known facts.
Typical elements genre structure, which most fully express the features of the detective:
1. Three questions
In the detective genre, a certain standard for plot construction has developed. At the very beginning, a crime is committed. The first victim appears. (In a few deviations from this option, the compositional functions of the victim are performed by the loss of something important and valuable, sabotage, forgery, the disappearance of someone, etc.) Then three questions arise: who? as? why? These questions form the composition. In the standard detective scheme, the question "who?" - the main and most dynamic, because the search for an answer to it takes up the greatest space and time of the action, determines the action itself with its deceitful moves, the process of investigation, the system of suspicion-evidence, the game of hints, details, the logical construction of the Great Detective (VD) thinking.
Thus, "who killed?" - the main spring of the detective. The other two questions are “how did the murder happen? "why?" - in fact, are derivatives of the first. It's like the underground waters of a detective, coming to the surface only at the very end, at the denouement. In the book it happens last pages ah, in the film - in the final monologues of the Great Detective or in dialogues with an assistant, friend or opponent of the protagonist, personifying the slow-witted reader. As a rule, in the VD guessing process hidden from the reader, the questions “how” and “why” have an instrumental meaning, since with their help, he identifies the criminal. It is curious that the predominance of "how" over "why" (and vice versa) determines to some extent the nature of the narrative. For the famous Englishwoman, the “queen of the detective” Agatha Christie, the mechanics of crime and investigation (“how?”) Are most interesting, and her favorite hero Hercule Poirot works tirelessly to study the circumstances of the murder, collecting evidence that recreates the picture of the crime, etc. The hero of Georges Simenon, Commissioner Maigret, getting used to the psychology of his characters, "entering the image" of each of them, first of all tries to understand "why" the murder happened, what motives led to it. The search for a motive for him is the most important thing.
In one of the first detective stories of world literature - the short story "Murder in the Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allan Poe, the amateur detective Auguste Dupin, faced with a mysterious crime, the victim of which was the mother and daughter of L "Espane, begins by studying the circumstances. How could the murder happen in locked from the inside of the room?
2. Composition structures
Famous English author detectives Richard Austin Freeman, who tried not only to formulate the laws of the genre, but also to give it some literary weight, in his work “Skill detective story»names four main compositional stages: 1) statement of the problem (crime); 2) investigation (solo part of the detective); 3) decision (answer to the question "who?"; 4) evidence, analysis of facts (answers to "how?" and "why?").
The main theme of the detective stories is formulated as "situation S - D", (from the English words Security - safety and Danger - danger), in which the homeliness of a civilized life is opposed scary world outside of that security. "Situation S - D" appeals to the psychology of the average reader, as it makes him feel a kind of pleasant nostalgia in relation to his home and responds to his aspirations to escape from dangers, to observe them from cover, as if through a window, to entrust care of his fate strong personality. The unfolding of the plot leads to an increase in danger, the impact of which is intensified by forcing fear, emphasizing the strength and composure of the criminal, and the helpless loneliness of the client. However, Yu. Shcheglov in his work “On the description of the structure of a detective story” claims that such a situation is a description of only one semantic plan.
The detective almost always has a happy ending. In the detective story, this is a complete return to safety, through a victory over danger. The detective administers justice, evil is punished, everything went back to normal.
3. Intrigue, plot, plot
Detective intrigue comes down to the simplest scheme: a crime, a consequence, a solution to a mystery. This circuit constructs a chain of events that form dramatic action. The variability here is minimal. The plot looks different. The choice of life material, concrete nature the detective, the scene of action, the method of investigation, the definition of the motives for the crime create a plurality of plot constructions within the boundaries of one genre. If the intrigue itself is non-ideological, then the plot is not only a formal concept, but is necessarily associated with the author's position, with the system that determines this position.
The detective is characterized by the closest adjustment of all three of these concepts - intrigue, plot, plot. Hence the narrowing of its plot possibilities, and, consequently, the limited life content. In many detective stories, the plot coincides with the plot and is reduced to a logical-formal construction of a dramatized criminal charade. But even in this case, which is extremely important to understand, the form is not irrelevant to the ideological content, it is subordinate to it, because it arose as a protective idea of the bourgeois world order, morality, and social relations.
4. Suspense (suspense). Voltage
The structural and compositional features of the detective story are a special mechanism of influence. Closely related to all these questions is the problem of suspense, without which the genre under consideration is inconceivable. One of the main tasks of detective storytelling is to create tension in the perceiver, which should be followed by relaxation, "liberation". The tension may be in the nature of emotional excitement, but it may also be of a purely intellectual nature, similar to what a person experiences when deciding mathematical problem, a difficult rebus, when playing chess. It depends on the choice of elements of influence, on the nature and method of the story. Often both functions are combined - mental stress is fueled by a system of emotional stimuli that cause fear, curiosity, compassion, and nervous shocks. However, this does not mean that the two systems cannot act almost in a purified form. It is enough to turn again to the comparison of the structures of the stories of Agatha Christie and Georges Simenon. In the first case, we are dealing with a rebus detective, with its almost mathematical coldness of plot construction, the accuracy of schemes, and the bare plot action. Simenon's stories, on the contrary, are characterized by the emotional involvement of the reader, caused by the psychological and social authenticity of that limited living space in which the human dramas described by Simenon are played out.
It would be a gross mistake to consider suspense as a category only negative. It all depends on the content of the reception, on the purpose of its use. Suspense is one of the elements of entertainment; through emotional tension, the intensity of the impression, the immediacy of reactions is also achieved.
6. Mystery, mystery, so characteristic of detectives, are made up not only of "questioning" (who? how? why?), but also from a special system of action of these riddle questions. Hints, riddles, evidence, innuendo in the behavior of the characters, the mysterious concealment from us of the thoughts of the VD, the total possibility of suspecting all the participants - all this excites our imagination.
Mysteriousness is designed to cause a special kind of irritation in a person. Its nature is dual - it is a natural reaction to the fact of violent human death, but it is also an artificial irritation achieved by mechanical stimuli. One of them is the technique of inhibition, when the reader's attention is directed on the wrong track. In Conan Doyle's novels, this function belongs to Watson, who always misunderstands the meaning of the evidence, puts forward a false motivation and plays "the role of the boy serving the ball for the game." His arguments are not devoid of logic, they are always plausible, but the reader, following him, gets into a dead end. This is the process of inhibition, without which the detective cannot do.
7. Great detective.
The French scientist Roger Caillois, who wrote one of the most interesting works on this topic - the essay "Detective Tale", claims that this genre "arose due to new life circumstances that began to dominate in early XIX century. Fouche, creating a political police, thereby replaced strength and speed with cunning and secrecy. Until that time, a uniform issued a representative of authority. The policeman rushed in pursuit of the criminal and tried to grab him. Secret agent replaced pursuit with investigation, speed with intelligence, violence with secrecy.
8. Catalog of tricks and characters.
None of the literary genres has such a precise and detailed code of laws that defines the “rules of the game”, establishes the limits of what is acceptable, and so on. The more the detective turned into a puzzle game, the more often and persistently rules-limiters, rules-guidance, etc. were proposed. The iconic nature of the mystery novel fit into sustainable system, in which not only situations, methods of deduction, but also characters became signs. A serious revolution has undergone, for example, the victim of a crime. It has become a neutral prop, the corpse has become simply the primary condition for the start of the game. This is especially pronounced in English version detective. Some authors tried to "compromise" the murdered person, as if removing the moral problem: justifying the author's indifference to the "corpse".
In a more expanded form, the "rules of the game" were proposed by Austin Freeman in the article "The Mastery of the Detective Story". He establishes four compositional stages - the formulation of the problem, the investigation, the solution, the evidence - and gives a description of each of them.
Even more significant were "20 rules for writing detective stories" by S. Van Dyne. The most interesting of these rules are: 1) the reader must have an equal chance with the detective in solving the riddle; 2) love should play the most insignificant role. The goal is to put the criminal behind bars, not bring a couple of lovers to the altar; 3) detective or other representative official investigation cannot be a criminal; 4) the offender can be detected only by logical deductive methods, but not by chance; 5) there must be a corpse in the detective. A crime less than murder has no right to occupy the attention of the reader. Three hundred pages is too much for that; 6) methods of investigation must have real basis, the detective does not have the right to resort to the help of spirits, spiritualism, reading thoughts at a distance; 7) there must be one detective - the Great Detective; 8) the offender must be a person who, under normal conditions, cannot be suspected. Therefore, it is not recommended to detect the villain among the servants; 9) all literary beauties, digressions not related to the investigation should be omitted; 10) international diplomacy, as well as political struggle, belong to other prose genres etc.
9. Ambivalence.
One more feature of the detective should be singled out in order to understand its special place in the literary series. We are talking about ambivalence, compositional and semantic duality, the purpose of which is the dual specificity of perception. The plot of the crime is built according to the laws of a dramatic narrative, in the center of which the event is a murder. It has its actors, its action is due to the usual causal relationship. This is a crime novel. The plot of the investigation - the detective is constructed as a rebus, a task, a puzzle, a mathematical equation and has a clearly playful character. Everything that is connected with the crime is distinguished by a bright emotional coloring, this material appeals to our psyche, the senses. The waves of mystery radiated by the narrative affect a person with a system of emotional signals, which are a message about a murder, a mysterious-exotic decorum, an atmosphere of involvement of all the characters in the murder, understatement, mystical incomprehensibility of what is happening, fear of danger, etc.
The ambivalence of the detective story explains both the popularity of the genre, and the traditional attitude towards it as pampering, and the eternal dispute about what it should be like, what functions it should perform (didactic or entertaining) and what it contains more - harm or benefit. Hence the traditional confusion of views, points of view, requirements.
Summing up, it should be noted that the detective genre, despite its general entertainment orientation, is quite serious and self-sufficient. It makes a person not only think logically, but also understand the psychology of people. A distinctive feature of the classic detective story is the moral idea embedded in it, or morality, which marks, to varying degrees, all the works of this genre.
Any good detective story is built "two-linear": one line is formed by a riddle and what is connected with it, the other - by special "non-mysterious" plot elements. If you remove the riddle, the work ceases to be a detective, but if you remove the second line, the detective turns from a full-fledged work of art into a bare plot, a rebus. Both of these lines are in a detective story in a certain ratio and balance. When translating works of this genre, it is important to first familiarize yourself with the entire text, make a pre-translation analysis, isolate segments of the text that carry key information that helps to uncover secrets, and pay the most attention to these segments.
Books are this unique world filled with mystery and magic that attracts each of us. We all prefer different genres: historical novels, fantasy, mysticism.
In a good detective story, a man holds a severed head in his hand...
However, one of the most revered and undoubtedly interesting genres is the detective story. A talentedly written work in the detective genre allows the reader to independently add up a logical chain of events and figure out the criminal. Which, of course, requires mental effort. Incredibly interesting and entertaining read!
So, what is a detective story in literature and how does it differ from other genres?
Writing a book in the detective genre requires a lot of effort from the author. The plot requires careful thought and does not tolerate inconsistencies in the narrative. A logically constructed chain of events and allusions, a violent confrontation between positive and bad guys, the tension with which the book is saturated ... These factors make the detective story one of the most beloved genres of many book lovers.
What is a detective?
A detective is a literary work or a movie that tells about the adventures of a detective. At the heart of a detective there is always a mystery that is revealed by the end of the story.
Origin of the term
What is a "detective"? The definition appeared along with the first detective stories that came out in the 19th century. The term originated from Latin word detectio - "reveal", "detect". It has two meanings: the first - designates a detective story as a genre, the second - a person who is investigating, a detective.
The term was borrowed from English in the 19th century.
The first detective in history
Agatha Christie with her Miss Marple is considered the ancestor of the classic detective story, but in reality this is not so. The classic detective story was first written in the 40s of the XIX century. popular writer Edgar Allan Poe. All three of his stories - "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", "The Secret of Marie Roger" and "The Stolen Letter" - are still considered classics, the motives of which are followed by the authors to this day.
There is a crime - there is a detective story
No less than Edgar Poe, Anna Catherine Green became famous for stories in the detective genre. Being the daughter of a lawyer, she was able not only to invent fascinating stories, but also described the investigation process as accurately as possible. Her first work, The Leavenworth Case, became a bestseller. In the Pennsylvania State Senate, Anna's authorship was questioned: could a woman write such a realistic detective story?
However, even before the 19th century, certain motifs of the detective genre were found in literature. Probably, the detective element arose simultaneously with the appearance of the first laws and their violations. It can be found even in ancient literature. But the first attempt to write a full-fledged detective story was made by William Godwin in the 15th century, who described the adventures of an enthusiastic lover of secrets.
Later, the anarchist philosopher W. Godwin, in his novel Caleb Williams (1974), described an amateur detective. A considerable share in the development of the detective genre was made by the memoirs of E. Vidocq. We will consider his fascinating biography in more detail below.
The famous Sam Spade is a typical noir detective. It was he who became one of the founders of this direction, which later gave the audience a chain of series about Colombo. What is a noir detective? This is an inhabitant of a narrow detective genre, which has its own distinctive features. Usually this is an ironic, middle-aged detective, disappointed in everything in the world. Often wears a cloak and hat, like the famous Colombo.
Discussing what a detective is in literature, one cannot fail to mention the most famous detective in literature - Sherlock Holmes, created by Arthur Conan Doyle. Until now, the authors of detective stories are trying to distance their characters as much as possible from perfect image Holmes.
Features of the detective genre
What is a detective as an artistic genre and what features does it differ in? Its elements are recognizable immediately, from the first pages of the story.
- The author expresses his thoughts clearly and pays more attention to environment than on the characters themselves. Detectives are sometimes written somewhat dryly and restrainedly, which is not observed in works of other literary genres. The exceptions are women's detective novels, which have a lot of emotion and humor. This is because the main task of the detective is to investigate main secret, logical comparison of facts.
- The author describes an everyday situation. The reader confidently navigates the events of the narrative and knows all the characters that appear in the story. However, there are exceptions when the only character not mentioned is the criminal. He appears at the end of the story, during the solving of the crime committed by him.
- There is almost always a crime in a detective story. The author actively involves the reader in the process of his investigation. He knows all the facts that allow him to put together the puzzle of events on his own. Of course, not all authors provide such an opportunity, sometimes it is impossible to guess the identity of the criminal until the last pages of the book.
- Logic. The logical chain that the author has built is not broken by any extraneous events. All the points described in the book are relevant to the investigation and are not mentioned just like that.
In addition, the detective has a certain "set" of characters.
Typical characters in a literary detective
The author writes a detective story for the detective. In other words, the criminal adjusts his bloody activities to the detective who is investigating the crime. However, it should be noted that not all subgenres of the detective novel have a crime. For example, five of the eighteen Sherlock Holmes stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle did not contain crime. However, the fact of the investigation of the riddle has been preserved.
The detective is often a police officer, private detective, or amateur. The latter is especially loved by readers, since his image is close and understandable to them. Reading such a detective story, the reader is sure that if he had been in the place of the detective, he would have acted in the same way. An amateur detective is often found in an adventurous detective story. What is a detective in the adventure genre? This is an adventure novel with a detective line in the spirit of Dashiell Hammett. Such novels abound in events, this is a world of exoticism and heroism, secrets and adventures.
The criminal often appears in the novel. He may be under the guise of a suspect, a witness, or even a victim. He opposes the investigation in every possible way, covering his tracks. Often the author introduces the reader to the criminal, but in such a way that he does not guess about his identity. After all, it is the intrigue, who is actually the main villain, in 90% of cases that makes the reader read the novel to the end.
And, of course, the victim, who often himself turns out to be a criminal in a classic detective story.
In addition, in the novel you can meet an assistant detective, a witness and other secondary characters.
The most famous detective in history
In the literary genre, the most famous detectives are: Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Auguste Dupin. However, in real life there were famous detectives who left their mark on history. Among them are Alan Pinkerton and Eugene Francois Vidocq.
The latter is famous for an incredibly turbulent biography. At the age of 14, in a fencing lesson, he killed his teacher, and although this one was fatal accident, Eugene decided to flee to America. However, he was drafted into the army. Soon he deserted and fell into bad company. Eugene robbed and killed as part of a gang, was repeatedly caught by the police, but each time he ran away, for which he was nicknamed the King of Risk in the underworld.
A year later, Eugene realized that this life was not for him, he himself went to the police and offered his services in catching criminals. He argued that only a criminal can understand a criminal. Eugene really managed to unravel even the most complex criminal cases. He became the prototype of many detectives of the literary genre.
The detective genre can be called the most popular among all the others. Detectives are read by people of all ages. Intricate plots, investigations and various adventures completely capture the reader and carry away into the mysterious world. In addition, you can choose a detective for every taste - be it historical, romantic, ironic or political.
Most books in this genre are published in series. For example, stories about Perry Mason, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple and many others. They take the reader into a world full of surprises, experiences and new adventures.
Foreign detective is represented by such famous authors as Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, John Khmelevskaya, Erle Stanley Gardner and many others. Among domestic writers, one can name Alexandra Marinina, Daria Dontsova, Boris Akunin, the Vainer brothers.
The main feature of the detective genre is some mysterious incident, the circumstances of which are unknown, but must be clarified. Basically, the described incident is a crime.
A distinctive feature of the detective is that the reader does not know the real circumstances of the crime until the investigation is completed. The author guides him through the whole process of revealing the incident, giving him the opportunity to make certain conclusions himself. If all the facts are described at the beginning of the book, then the work can be attributed to some related genre, but not to a detective story in pure form.
Another important property of the described direction of literature can be called the completeness of the facts. The result of the investigation is necessarily based on the information that the reader knows. By the time the work is completed, all information must be submitted in full. Thus, the reader can find the solution himself. Only small details can remain hidden, which do not affect the result of revealing the secret. At the end, all questions must be answered, and all riddles solved.
Although detective stories are considered fiction, the plots described are often found in life.
Some types of detectives
Closed detective. A subgenre usually most closely aligned with the canons of the classic detective story. The plot is based on the investigation of a crime committed in a secluded place, where there is a strictly limited set of characters. There can be no stranger in this place, so the crime could only be committed by one of those present and the investigation is carried out by one of those at the crime scene with the help of the other heroes. Examples of closed-type detective stories: Agatha Christie "Murder on the Orient Express", "Ten Little Indians"; Boris Akunin "Leviathan"; Daria Dontsova "The Flying Pretender"; Vladimir Kuzmin "An envelope from Shanghai" (series "The Adventures of Dasha Bestuzheva").
Psychological detective. This type a detective story may somewhat deviate from the classical canons in terms of the requirement of stereotypical behavior and the typical psychology of heroes. Usually, a crime committed for personal reasons (envy, revenge) is investigated, and the main element of the investigation is the study of the personality characteristics of the suspects, their attachments, pain points, beliefs, prejudices, clarifying the past. Examples of psychological detective: Charles Dickens "The Mystery of Edwin Drood"; Fyodor Dostoyevsky "Crime and Punishment"
Historical detective is a historical work with detective intrigue. The action takes place in the past, or an ancient crime is being investigated in the present. Example: Gilbert Keith Chesterton "Father Brown"; Boris Akunin literary project "The Adventures of Erast Fandorin"; Henry Winterfeld "Detectives in Togas"; Elena Artamonova "The kingdom of the revived mummy".
Ironic detective. The detective investigation is described from a humorous point of view. Often, works written in this vein parody and ridicule the cliches of a detective novel.
Examples: Daria Dontsova (all works); Alexander Kazachinsky "Green Van"; John Khmelevskaya "Haunted House", "Treasures", "Special Merit" and others; the Funny Detective series, which includes works by various authors.
Fantastic detective. Works at the intersection of fantasy and detective. The action can take place in the future, alternative present or past, in full fictional world. Examples: Stanislav Lem "Investigation", "Inquiry"; Kir Bulychev cycle "Intergalactic Police" ("Intergpol"); Brothers Strugatsky "Hotel "At the Dead Alpinist"; Kirsten Miller "Kiki Strike Girl Detective".
Political detective. The main intrigue is built around political events and rivalry between various political or business figures and forces. It often happens that the main character is far from politics, however, while investigating a case, he stumbles upon an obstacle from the side of "those in power" or reveals a conspiracy. Distinctive feature political detective lack of completely positive characters, except for the main one. This genre is rarely found in its pure form, but it can be an integral part of the work. A classic example of this type is the work of Boris Akunin "State Counselor"; Eugenios Trivisas "The Last Black Cat"
Spy detective. It is based on the narrative of the activities of intelligence officers, spies and saboteurs both in wartime and in peacetime on the "invisible front". In terms of stylistic boundaries, it is very close to political and conspiracy detectives, often combined in the same work. The main difference between a spy detective and a political one is that in a political detective the most important position is occupied by the political basis of the case under investigation, while in espionage the attention is focused on intelligence work (surveillance, sabotage, etc.).
A conspiracy detective can be considered a variety of both espionage and political detective. The authors, moving towards the solution of the crime, build a narrative line into the historical past, which seems to be criminal, being in the power of some secret society.
Examples of a spy detective: Agatha Christie's "Cat Among the Pigeons"; Boris Akunin "Turkish Gambit"; Dmitry Medvedev "It was near Rovno"; Yulian Semyonov "Seventeen Moments of Spring"; Valery Ronshin "The Secret of Marshmallows in Chocolate".
Police detective. Describes the work of a team of professionals. In works of this type, the protagonist-detective is either absent or only slightly higher in importance in comparison with the rest of the team. In terms of the reliability of the plot, it is closest to reality and, accordingly, deviates to the greatest extent from the canons of the pure detective genre. A professional routine is described in detail with details that are not directly related to the plot, there is a significant proportion of accidents and coincidences, big role The presence of informants in the criminal environment plays a role, the offender often remains unnamed and unknown until the very end of the investigation, and can also evade punishment due to the negligence of the investigation or the lack of direct evidence.
Examples: Ed McBain cycle "87th Precinct"; Yulian Semyonov "Petrovka 38", "Ogaryova 6".
"Cool" detective. It is described most often by a lone detective, a man of 35-40 years old, or a small detective agency. In works of this type, the protagonist confronts almost the whole world: organized crime, corrupt politicians, corrupt police. The main features are the maximum action of the hero, his "coolness", the vile surrounding world and the honesty of the protagonist. Examples: Dashiell Hammett cycle about the Continental Detective Agency - is considered the founder of the genre; Raymond Chandler "Goodbye Darling", "High Window", "Lady in the Lake"; James Hadley Chase "There will be no witnesses", "The whole world in your pocket", etc.
The detective is a recognized leader among the genres of modern children's literature. And although fantasy and "virtual" adventures push him from all sides, the children's detective continues to live and develop rapidly, despite his advanced age.
Among the creators of children's detective stories there are quite venerable writers. For example, Erich Köstner, the author of the story "Emil and the Detectives", Astrid Lindgren, who wrote books about the super detective Kalle Blomkvist, Anatoly Rybakov with his famous "Dagger".
Among the authors of the modern children's detective story are Valery Ronshin, Ekaterina Vilmont, Elena Matveeva, Anton Ivanov, Anna Ustinova, Alexey Birger, Sergey Silin, Valery Gusev, Vladimir Averin, Galina Gordienko, Andrey Grushkin, and this list is far from complete. To the authors of the children's detective story, one can add the master of this genre, Boris Akunin, who published the detective story "Children's Book" and edited his "adult" novels for children.
There are many varieties of children's detective stories: everyday and historical detectives, mystical (“horror stories”) and fairy tales (their heroes are characters of Russian folklore).
For example, we can cite the series: “Black Kitten” (Elena Artamonova “Joke from the Stone Age”, Valery Gusev “Agent number one”, etc.); "Detective Agency" (Anton Ivanov, Anna Ustinova "The Mystery of the Black Widow", "The Mystery of the Missing Academician", etc.); "Abbey Secrets" (Sherit Baldry "The Spell of the Monastery Cauldron", "The Secret royal sword”, “King Arthur Cross”); "Detective + Love" (Ekaterina Vilmont "It's hard to be brave", "In search of treasures", etc.), etc.
Georginova N. Yu. Detective genre: reasons for its popularity / N. Yu. Georginova // Scientific dialogue. - 2013. - No. 5 (17): Philology. - S. 173-186.
UDC 82-312.4+82-1/-9+821.161.1’06
Detective genre: reasons for popularity
N. Yu. Georginova
Review proposed existing opinions regarding the place occupied by the detective in literature and culture in general. Based on the analysis of the points of view of specialists involved in the issues of understanding genre originality such works, the task of identifying the reasons for the popularity of detective stories among readers is solved. In addition, it is noted that not only does not weaken, but also increases interest in the study of the detective genre in the scientific community of literary critics and linguists.
Keywords: detective; genre; popularity.
In the course of the development of literary thought, there is a constant reassessment of values, a change in methods, methods of organizing works of art. In other words, there is a continuous process of enrichment through constant changes, modifications. Literary genres, being necessary components of literature, are also subject to change and reassessment. A vivid example of this is the history of the development of the detective genre. Throughout the history of its formation, the detective genre has caused a lot of questions and disputes among literary critics. In particular, the question of the place occupied by the detective in literature and culture as a whole remains ambiguous.
In the afterword to the collection How to Make a Detective, G. Andzhaparidze concludes that “the detective occupies his own place in culture and nothing else has any chance of replacing him.”
place” [Andzhaparidze, 1990, p. 280]. In other words, the detective is full-fledged and full-fledged in the world literary process. Proof of this is this collection, which includes the works of such authors as A. Conan Doyle, G. K. Chesterton, D. Hammett, R. O. Freeman, S. S. Van Dyne, D. Sayers, R. Knox , M. Leblanc, C. Aveline, D. D. Carr, F. Glauser, E. S. Gardner, M. Allen, S. Maugham, R. Stout, E. Quinn, R. Chandler, J. Simenon, Boileau -Narsejak, A. Christie, H. L. Borges, G. Anjaparidze.
Thus, the English thinker and writer, author of a number of detective stories, Gilbert K. Chesterton, in his essay “In Defense of Detective Literature” writes: “Not only is a detective novel or story a completely legitimate literary genre, it also has quite definite and real benefits as an instrument of the common good" [Chesterton, 1990, p. 16]. Moreover, the author insists that the appearance of the detective is a natural historical move that meets the social and cultural needs of people: “Sooner or later, rough, popular literature should have appeared, revealing the romantic possibilities of the modern city. And it arose in the form of popular detective stories, as rude and blood-curdling as the ballads about Robin Hood" [Chesterton, 1990, p. eighteen]. Argentine prose writer, poet and publicist Jorge Lui Borges also emphasizes the need to single out the detective as a separate genre: “In defense of the detective genre, I would say that it does not need protection: read today with a sense of superiority, it maintains order in an era of disorder. Such fidelity to the model is worthy of praise, and well-deserved” [Borges, 1990, p. 271-272].
We also meet R. Chandler's defensive speech: “It is hardly necessary to prove that the detective story is an important and viable art form” [Chandler, 1990, p. 165].
In R. O. Freeman we find: “There is no genre more popular than a detective story ... After all, it is quite obvious that a genre that has attracted the attention of people of culture and intellect cannot contain anything inherently bad” [Freeman, 1990, p. 29]. The fact that the detective
Tiv has been repeatedly opposed genuine literature as “something unworthy”, is explained by literary critics by the existence, along with the real geniuses of their genre, of unscrupulous authors. According to R. O. Freeman, “a detective story that is able to fully embody all the characteristic properties of the genre, while remaining a work written in good language, with skillfully recreated background and curious characters that correspond to the strictest literary canons, remains perhaps the most a rare occurrence in fiction» [Freeman, 1990, p. 29]. We meet a similar thought in R. Chanler: “Nevertheless, a detective story, even in its most traditional form, is extremely difficult to write ... A good detective writer (it cannot be that we don’t have them) is forced to compete not only with all the unburied the dead, but also with the legions of their living colleagues" [Chandler, 1990, p. 166]. The author accurately defines the complexity of writing a good detective story: “It seems to me that the main difficulty that arises before a traditional, or classic, or detective novel based on logic and analysis, is that in order to achieve at least relative perfection, qualities are rarely required here. collectively present in one person. An imperturbable logic designer usually does not turn out lively characters, his dialogues are boring, there is no plot dynamics, there are absolutely no bright, accurately seen details. The rationalist pedant is as emotional as a drawing board. His scientist detective works in a shiny new laboratory, but it is impossible to remember the faces of his heroes. Well, a person who knows how to compose dashing bright prose will never undertake the hard labor of composing an iron alibi" [Chandler, 1990, p. 167].
According to S. Eisenstein, the detective always attracted the reader “by the fact that this is the most effective genre of literature. You can't get away from him. It is built with such means and techniques that tie a person to reading as much as possible. Detective
The most potent remedy, the most refined, refined construction in a number of other literatures. This is the genre where
effects are exposed to the limit” [Eisenstein, 1968, p. 107]. The detective is singled out as an independent literary genre on the basis of its inherent features. So, A. Vulis notes: “Detective is a genre. But it's also a topic. More precisely, a combination of both. The genre itself has such a clear event program that we know in advance some of the main episodes of a work that has not yet been read” [Vulis, 1978, p. 246].
So the detective owns special place in literature due to the presence of compositional forms peculiar only to him, the concept of characters, forms of influence, and even due to the presence of his own reader. "There is a type modern reader- lover of detectives. This reader - and he has bred all over the world, and it is counted in the millions - was created by Edgar Allan Poe, ”we meet Jorge Louis Borges [Borges, 1990, p. 264]. To whom is the detective addressed? “Genuine connoisseurs of the genre, who strongly prefer it to all others, who read detective stories meticulously and attentively, are mainly representatives of intellectual circles: theologians, humanities scholars, lawyers, and also, perhaps to a lesser extent, doctors and representatives of the exact sciences”, Freeman concludes [Freeman, 1990, p. 32].
The interest of scientists - representatives of the scientific community - in reading detective literature is explained by the similarity of methods and techniques used in detective and science. So, B. Brecht believes: “The scheme of a good detective novel resembles the method of work of our physicists: first, certain facts are recorded, working hypotheses are put forward that could correspond to the facts. Adding new facts and discarding known facts forces us to look for a new working hypothesis. Then the working hypothesis is tested: experiment. If it is correct, the killer must appear somewhere as a result of the measures taken” [Brecht, 1988, p. 281]. “In general, - notes V.V. Melnik, - the process of creative thinking in science and detective story proceeds according to the same scenario after overcoming the cognitive and psychological barriers.
the ditch ends with the comprehension of the paradoxical truth-discovery” [Melnik, 1992, p. 5]. Such an "invasion of science into literature", which takes place in the detective story, makes it possible for the coexistence of two forms of thinking - artistic and conceptual and logical. The first, as we remember, operates with images, the second with concepts. In addition, the art form of the detective is ideally suited for active assimilation scientific knowledge the reader at the level of his own “discoveries” due to the fact that the detective scheme, as noted by a passionate admirer of the detective genre, S. M. Eisenstein, “reproduces the historical path of human consciousness from pralogical, figurative-sensory thinking to logical and further to their synthesis, dialectical thinking » [Eisenstein, 1980, p. 133]. These views are shared by N. N. Volsky: “I suppose that the detective story gives the reader a rare opportunity to use his abilities for dialectical thinking, to put into practice (albeit under artificial conditions of intellectual fun) that part of his spiritual potential, which Hegel calls “speculative reason ”and which, being inherent in every reasonable person, finds almost no application in our everyday life” [Volsky, 2006, p. 6].
Thus, reading detective literature is correlated with the process of becoming a personality, progressively moving from the stage of sensory-figurative thinking to the maturity of consciousness and the synthesis of both in the most perfect examples of the inner life of creative, creative personalities.
N. Ilyina, analyzing the features and reasons for the popularity of the detective genre, comes to the conclusion that the detective is literature and play. We are talking about a game that is “useful, developing observation, quick wit, educating the participant in the game the ability to think analytically and understand strategy” [Ilyina, 1989, p. 320]. In her opinion, literature in the detective genre is “the ability to build a plot without sacrificing persuasiveness for the sake of acting, well-defined characters, lively dialogues and, of course, a reflection of life” [Ilyina, 1989, p. 328]
Julian Simons speaks about several other reasons forcing the reader to turn to the detective genre. Exploring psychoanalytic connections, the author cites an article by Charles Rycroft in "Sycology Quarterly" for 1957, which continues the hypothesis of J. Pedersen-Crogg, according to which the features of the perception of the detective are due to impressions and fears from early childhood. The detective reader, according to Pedersen-Crogg, satisfies children's curiosity by becoming an "investigator" and thus "fully compensates for the helplessness, fear and guilt that have existed in the subconscious since childhood" [Simons, 1990, p. 230]. Julian Simons gives another version of W.H. We live, obeying and, in fact, fully accepting the dictates of the law. We turn to a detective story in which a person whose guilt was considered undoubted turns out to be innocent, and the real criminal is someone who was completely beyond suspicion, and we find in it a way to escape from everyday life and return to an imaginary world of sinlessness, where “we can know love like love, not like a punishing law” [Simons, 1990, p. 231-232].
In addition, the author proposes to develop the ideas of Auden and Fuller, “linking the pleasure we get from reading detective stories with the custom adopted among primitive peoples, according to which the tribe achieves purification by transferring its sins and troubles to any particular animal or person”, and connects the reasons for the decline of the detective precisely with the “weakening of the sense of sin”: “Where the awareness of one’s sinfulness in the religious sense of the word does not exist, the detective, as an exorcist, has nothing to do” [Simons, 1990, p. 233].
Interest in reading detective literature is associated with his ability to embody "the path of movement from darkness to light." This means, first of all, the disclosure of a crime, the solution of a mystery. Edgar Allan Poe believed that the artistic joy and usefulness of the detective lies precisely in this gradual movement from darkness to light, from
confusion to clarity. S. M. Eisenstein speaks of the situation of "coming into the light of God." Moreover, the situation is understood as a case by means of which the attacker managed to get out of an impossible situation. And the detective brings the truth into the light of God, "for every detective comes down to the fact that from the" labyrinth "of delusions, false interpretations and dead ends, finally," into the light of God "the true picture of the crime is brought out" [Eisenstein, 1997, p. 100]. In this case, the detective, according to the author, appeals to the myth of the Minotaur and the primary complexes associated with it.
Thus, the detective takes its rightful place in literature. “Over the past ten years, significantly more detective novels have appeared in Russia than in the previous period,” notes journalist and literary translator G. A. Tolstyakov. “The change in censorship policy has given literary space and made it possible to expand the range of translated and published authors, perhaps the most widely read genre of popular literature” [Tolstyakov, 2000, p. 73].
Attempts to comprehend the role and significance of the detective genre are inseparable from the search for the reasons for its wide recognition. The enduring popularity of this genre is due to a number of reasons that make the reader turn to the detective again and again: the need to compensate for helplessness, to overcome fears, to alleviate feelings of guilt, to experience a feeling of cleansing from one's sinfulness, in emotions; interest in the game and competition, response to the challenge of intellectual abilities; the need to read and observe curious characters; the desire to see romance in everyday city life; the desire to participate in an intellectual game, guessing the event program, applying one's abilities to dialectical thinking, unraveling the mystery. As you can see we are talking about the needs of two types: psychological and socio-cultural (Fig. 1). Note that the distinction between types is conditional, since upon closer examination, almost all needs are of a psychological nature.
Rice. 1. The needs of readers as the reasons for the popularity of the detective genre
The popularity of the detective genre - the growing interest on the part of readers, the constant attention of literary critics and practitioners to it - led to the emergence of an increasing number of linguistic works devoted to its study. The focus is on cognitive, pragmatic, discursive and other parameters of a detective text [Vatolina, 2011; Dudina, 2008; Kryukova, 2012; Leskov, 2005; Merkulova, 2012; Teplykh, 2007 and others]. The need for scientific research in this area is dictated by
anthropocentric paradigm, relevant in modern literary criticism and linguistics. The attention of scientists who recognize that it is important to take into account the human factor in language is drawn to the study of the cognitive structures of human consciousness involved in the representation, acquisition and processing of knowledge about the world contained, in particular, in a literary text. Language is understood as a way of representing human knowledge about the world.
T. G. Vatolina devotes her research to the cognitive analysis of English-language detective works. Projecting the concept of "discourse" onto a detective text, the author proceeds from the interpretation of discourse in the cognitive aspect as a "special mentality" [Stepanov, 1995, p. 38] and in the communicative aspect as “messages - continuously renewed or complete, fragmentary or whole, oral or written, sent and received in the process of communication” [Plotnikova, 2011, p. 7]. T. G. Vatolina proves that each detective story is created according to a standard cognitive model that is the same for all detective stories. The general cognitive model of detective discourse is, at an internal deep level, “a complete holistic construct consisting of interrelated fragments
Cognitive contours” [Vatolina, 2011, p. twenty]. To describe the cognitive model of the detective story, the author uses the method of assigning generalized metanominations to characters, which was developed by Yu. structural analysis artistic text [Kristeva, 2004]. The deepest outline of the cognitive model of detective discourse is formed, according to the author, by five characters: detective, murderer, witness, assistant, victim. Deepening the cognitive model of the detective, the author derives, on the basis of speech analysis, a separate human quality of each character, abstracted and elevated to the level of a concept. So, the basic concept of speech acts of the Detective is the concept of "Truth", for the Killer - "False", for the Witness, Helper and Victim - the concept of "Misunderstanding". In addition, in terms of the concept of "conceptual standard of the genre", the introduction
put into scientific use by S. N. Plotnikova and understood as a deep cognitive genre-forming basis, an invariant concept, compliance with which is mandatory for attributing a text to any genre, T. G. Vatolina defines the conceptual system of a detective story: "Murder" - "Investigation" -"Explanation".
I. A. Dudina devotes her research to the study of detective discourse in the light of the cognitive-communicative-pragmatic approach. Based on the detective works of English and American writers, she reveals the status characteristics of detective discourse in a number of other literary discourses, displays elements and designates models on the basis of which the discursive space of a detective text is formed. The author distinguishes between the concepts of "detective text" as "a linguistic formation that has a certain structure and is characterized by coherence and integrity" and "detective discourse" as a "scheme" writer - artistic investigation - reader
Entertainment”, thus pointing to the functional, dynamic nature of the discourse, where the text is an element of communication that connects the author and the reader [Dudina, 2008, p. ten]. The proposed approach to the interpretation of a literary text is based on the thesis that samples, mental models, i.e., specially structured knowledge representation systems that form the basis of our language ability and speech behavior, are stored in the human mind. The author distinguishes two cognitive models of detective discourse in the form of the structure of the subject-referential situation and the structure of the procedural situation. The subject-referential situation in the detective discourse is “a clear event program” that the author of the detective text plans according to certain rules of the detective genre. A procedural situation is “a situation in which the author of a detective text influences the reader by resorting to a certain tone, the nature of the narration, which causes the reader to respond with an appropriate emotional mood” [Dudina, 2008, p. 12].
L. S. Kryukova explores the plot perspective in the stories of the detective genre. The plot perspective is understood by the author as “a unit of the structural organization of the text of the detective genre in revealing the intrigue laid down by the writer in the code-schematic content of the plot” [Kryukova, 2012, p. 3]. The distinctive features of the plot perspective of the detective genre are revealed, the nature of the refraction of the plot perspective in four types is described. speech situations(micro-thematic, thematic, macro-thematic and textological).
D. A. Shigonov analyzes the recurrent center as a coding unit of the text on the material of English detective stories. The recurrent center is understood as “a unit of text, which is a repetition of thought that violates the linear presentation of the content to update the previously stated”, as a result of which it acts as “a mechanism on the basis of which the connection of distant parts of the text that have a common semantic basis” [Shigonov, 2005, p. . 5]. Thus, in the text of a detective work, a coding structure, represented by a recurrent center, and a decoding structure are distinguished. The recurrent center contains the riddle of the detective work, explicated through distantly located segments of the text that have a common semantic content. Recurrent centers are closely related to the plot perspective: “The plot perspective in the text of a detective work forms the content through an inconsistent connection of unfolding events” and “acts exactly as the way of integrating the work, which is based on distantly located recurrent centers” [Shigonov, 2005, p. eleven].
Let's pay attention to the fact that all this is the work of recent years. Thus, the detective genre is increasingly becoming the subject of research by literary critics, linguists, theorists and practitioners of the genre. Unflagging scientific interest to genre features of these texts is largely a consequence of the ever-decreasing popularity of detective stories in today's readership.
Literature
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© Georginova N. Yu., 2013
Crime Fiction: Causes of Popularity
The article reviews current opinions on the position held by crime fiction in literature and culture in general. Basing on the analysis of viewpoints of the specialists addressing the issues of evaluating such works" genre peculiarities, the author identifies the reasons for the crime fiction popularity with readers. Furthermore, it is noted that the interest in studying the crime fiction genre has been growing lately rather than weakening in the academic society of literary scholars and linguists.
Key words: crime fiction; genre; popularity.
Georginova Natalya Yurievna, Lecturer at the Department of Specialized Training in Foreign Languages, Murmansk State Technical University (Murmansk), [email protected]
Georginova, N., lecturer, Department of Specialized Training in Foreign Languages, Murmansk State Technical University (Murmansk), [email protected] ru.
