French Crime Fiction
FR405
Dr Georgina Collins
10 January 2012
Today’s session
• The practicalities of the module
• An overview of what we will be studying
• The history and development of French
Crime Fiction
• Some of the theoretical background to
the texts we will be studying
• Introduction to key themes
• Key figures in development of the genre
This module
One hour lecture:
– Historical and theoretical background
One hour seminar
– Discussion of text in light of lecture
– Interactive
Office hours: Thursday 3-5
Email: georgina.collins@warwick.ac.uk
Website
Assessment
Formative assessment:
• Essay (questions online now)
• around 1,500 words in length
• by Tuesday of week 23
Summative assessment options:
• 100% essay (4000-5000 words)
• 100% exam
• 50% of each (essay – 2000-2500 words)
Assessed essay questions (online now)
• 12.00 noon on Tuesday of week 25
• 100% essay – can devise own title – speak to me
Intro to French Crime Fiction
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La Belle Époque to present day
Evolution of the genre
Codification
French history
Critique of social order
Youth culture
Challenging traditional codes
Relating writers to these themes
The genre
• Le roman policier
• A lesser genre?
- Littérature populaire
- Littérature de gare
- Genre mineur
• Divide between so-called low culture
and high culture
The novel
• Mid-19th C – French crime fiction
became a legitimate genre
• Novel:
- popular form of entertainment
- exploring limits of representation
• Exploratory novels – synonymous with
high culture
From romanticism to realism
• Romanticism:
- produced many novels
- exotic or historical settings
• Eg. Hugo’s Notre-Dame de
Paris
- medieval Paris
Nationalism
• Romanticism
- 1825-1850
- linked to nationalism
• Emphasis on:
- national culture (history, geography)
- folklore
• Strengthened mythological
basis of nation
Romantic novels
• Issues of justice and law and
order
• Culprits, victims and
investigators
• Le Comte de Monte Cristo
(Dumas)
• Les Misérables (Hugo)
Balzac
• Famous character – Vautrin
• Based upon Eugène François Vidocq:
- Head of French Sûreté
- Formerly on other side
of the law
- Recruited as informer
- Memoires were very
popular
Capturing the public’s imagination
• Dual nature of Vidocq
• Emphasis on adventurous, lurid nature
of profession
• Police methods – provocations,
disguise, incitement to betrayal
• Chevalier Dupin (Poe) – a
rational approach
Glamour, romance and adventure
• Memoirs brought these factors to
otherwise uninspiring police world
• Glorified criminal activities
• Success – indicator of public discontent
• Balzac:
- Le Père Goriot
- Les Illusions perdues
- Splendeurs et misères
des courtisanes
The birth of the genre
1. Emergence of
popular press
2. New trends in the
book market
3. New approach to
time, space and
work
Factor one
• Gradual emergence of popular press
• Daily newspapers mixing:
- currents affairs
- ‘faits divers’
- serialised short
stories / novels
Emile Gaboriau
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Founding father of French Crime Fiction
Petit Journal and Le Soleil
Created Commissaire Lecoq
1st recurrent detective
Name from Vidocq
Influenced Arthur Conan
Doyle
Judicial procedures
• Gaboriau
- translated into English
- novels recommended to British
lawyers
• Lecoq is a mixture of:
- Vidocq: adventure,
glamour, romance
- Dupin: ratiocination
Knowledge of police procedures
• Lecoq – recognisable techniques
• Demonstrate author’s knowledge
• Combination of:
- reasoning, tracking techniques,
disguises, forensic methods
- Vidocq’s sportsmanship,
knowledge of
underworld
Artistic flair
• Gaboriau’s investigators:
- marginal figures
- work according to instinct
- like an artist
• Stand for law and order, but
also talent and inspiration
• Justice needs imaginative
genius
• But police – also fallible
Serialisation
• Reader’s satisfaction – main
objective
• Survival depended on sales
• To maintain profit – art of
suspense became a major
ingredient
Factor 2
Development of a distinctive
crime genre linked to:
Set of new trends in the
book market
The Industrial revolution
• Middle of the 19th century
• Revolution influenced:
- reading habits
- relations to cultural goods
• Birth of middle class and notion of
leisure
• Reading associated with leisure
• Increasingly demanding readers
Mass consumption
• Sentimental novels, children’s literature,
adventure novels and crime / detective
novels
• Serialisation (feuilletons) led to:
- mass consumption
- demanding readers
The quest for the ultimate
answer: the genre’s driving
force
Factor 3
Development of a distinctive
crime genre linked to:
A new approach to time,
space and work
The genre’s modernity
• Modern life divided between
work and leisure
• Work: its own rhythm, rationality
in labour division, timing
• Leisure: needed to be effective
• Crime fiction:
- easily adapted to modern
life
- quickly consumed
- reproducable
Individualism
• Literary production heralded in the
rise of individualism
• Male detective either:
- police officer (rep of state)
- private detective (rep of
discourse of law and order)
• But he stands outside the system
• A solitary figure
On the periphery
• To deal with justice – needs
to observe
• In-spector: looking into
(from outside)
• Seeks to protect
anonymous mass
• Not unlike the artist:
- requires isolation and
reflection
- sets himself apart from
the populace
The flâneur
• The inspector – le flâneur (Constantin
Guys)
• Described by Baudelaire:
- artistic modernity
- new way of being
• Constantin Guy:
- embodiment of a rupture
- ‘homme du monde’
Curiosity
• A key characteristic of the in-spector
• Hermeneutic quest requires
- proximity of the crowd
- to draw inspiration (artist) /
clues (detective) from it
The investigator
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A product of new approach to the world
Both in the world and on the periphery
Voyeur of the anecdotal
Society – spectacle from which to
collect clues / intelligence
• Crime fiction captures epistemological
shift in West (around 1860)
Summary
• Development from low culture to high
culture
• Romantic texts – Dumas and Hugo
• Birth of genre down to 3 key facts:
- Emergence of popular press
- New trends in the book market
- New approach to time, space and work
• Detective – individual, on the periphery
of society, looking in, hermeneutic quest
Questions and
Comments?
Seminar: Round the room
What have you learnt
from this lecture?
Seminar: Group work
1.What are the characteristics of the
detective described in the lecture?
2. How can you relate these characteristics
to a classic literary / tv detective you
know?
3. Read the article:
- summarise the key points
- can you relate any of these to
today’s lecture?
- be ready to give a 1 minute overview
Don’t forget to
prepare for next
week!
Seminar questions will be
posted online after today’s
session