Detective Fiction and Anti-Detective Fiction. Edgar Allen Poe and Paul Auster in Comparison (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2020 in the subject German Studies - Comparative Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Stuttgart, language: English, abstract: In a preface to his books on crime fiction Stephen Knight says, "No detective is needed to identify the vigorous life and remarkable diversity of crime fiction". This statement is certainly true. The pool of crime fiction literature, readers of the twenty-first century can choose from, is huge. Statistics show that, "In 2017, crime became the UK's most popular adult fiction genre, outselling general and literary fiction for the first time". To narrow this abundance of information down by a good chunk this paper only focuses of detective fiction, a sub-genre of crime fiction. More specifically, it takes a look at the works of two authors. One of these authors is Edgar Allan Poe who is often deemed the father of the detective genre, a claim that will be investigated later on in this paper. His influence on detective fiction can be traced throughout the centuries but is particularly strong in Paul Auster. Auster in turn epitomizes postmodern detective fiction, also called anti-detective fiction, which is a sub-genre of traditional detective fiction. He is the second author chosen here. The goal of this paper is to determine why postmodern detective fiction is considered a sub-genre of traditional detective fiction, shining light on what sets it apart from the traditional detective fiction.