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Whatever happened to Sherlock Holmes?: detective fiction, popular theology, and society

1992; Association of College and Research Libraries; Volume: 29; Issue: 07 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5860/choice.29-3765

1943-5975

Robert S. Paul,

Multicultural Socio-Legal Studies

Robert S. Paul suggests that reason detective fiction has won legions of readers may be that the writer of detective fiction, without conscious intent, appeals directly to those moral spiritual roots of society unconsciously affirmed endorsed by readers.Because detective stories deal with crime punishment they cannot help dealing implicitly with theological issues, such as reality of good evil, recognition that humankind has potential for both, nature of evidence (truth error), significance of our existence in a rational order hence reality of truth, value of individual in a civilized society.Paul argues that genre traces its true beginning to Enlightenment documents two related but different reactions to theological issues involved: first, a line of writers who are generally positive in relation to their cultural setting, such as Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins, Conan Doyle; second, a reactionary strain, critical of prevailing culture, that begins in William Godwin's Caleb Williams and continues through anti-heroic writers like Arsene Lupin to Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, John MacDonald.