Detecting Texts : : The Metaphysical Detective Story from Poe to Postmodernism / / Susan Elizabeth Sweeney, Patricia Merivale.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Penn Press eBook Package Complete Collection
• HerausgeberIn: Merivale, Patricia,; Sweeney, Susan Elizabeth,
• Place / Publishing House: Philadelphia : : University of Pennsylvania Press, , [2011]; ©1999
• Year of Publication: 2011
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (320 p.)
• Other title: Frontmatter --; Contents --; Preface --; The Games Afoot --; Chapter 1. Mysteries We Reread, Mysteries of Rereading --; Chapter 2. Borgess Library of Forking Paths --; Chapter 3. (De)feats of Detection --; Chapter 4. Gumshoe Gothics --; Chapter 5. Work of the Detective, Work of the Writer --; Chapter 6. "The Question Is the Story Itself" --; Chapter 7. Reader-Investigators in the Post-Nouveau Roman --; Chapter 8. "A Thousand Other Mysteries" --; Chapter 9. Postmodernism and the Monstrous Criminal --; Chapter 10. Detecting Identity in Time and Space --; Chapter 11. "Premeditated Crimes" --; Chapter 12. "Subject-Cases" and "Book-Cases" --; Suggestions for Further Reading --; Contributors --; Index
• Format: Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
• ISBN: 9780812205459; 9783110413458; 9783110413540; 9783110442526
• DOI: 10.9783/9780812205459
• Access: restricted access
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: Susan Elizabeth Sweeney, Patricia Merivale.

Although readers of detective fiction ordinarily expect to learn the mystery's solution at the end, there is another kind of detective story-the history of which encompasses writers as diverse as Poe, Borges, Robbe-Grillet, Auster, and Stephen King-that ends with a question rather than an answer. The detective not only fails to solve the crime, but also confronts insoluble mysteries of interpretation and identity. As the contributors to Detecting Texts contend, such stories belong to a distinct genre, the "metaphysical detective story," in which the detective hero's inability to interpret the mystery inevitably casts doubt on the reader's similar attempt to make sense of the text and the world.Detecting Texts includes an introduction by the editors that defines the metaphysical detective story and traces its history from Poe's classic tales to today's postmodernist experiments. In addition to the editors, contributors include Stephen Bernstein, Joel Black, John T. Irwin, Jeffrey T. Nealon, and others.