The aesthetics of murder
Subtitle: a study in romantic literature and contemporary culture
By: Joel Black.
Series: Parallax : re-visions of culture and society; Parallax (Baltimore, Md.)
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 1991
Place of publication: Baltimore
Language: eng
Number of pages: 276
Subjects: Murder in literature.; Romanticism.; Fiction -- History and criticism.; Detective and mystery stories -- History and criticism.; Murder literature -- History and criticism.; Murder in mass media.; Literature and society -- History -- 20th century.
Description: "What connects the Romantic essays of Thomas De Quincey and the violent cinema of Brian De Palma? Or the "beautiful" suicides of Hedda Gabler and Yukio Mishima? Or the shootings of John Lennon and Ronald Reagan? In The Aesthetics of Murder, Joel Black explores the sometimes gruesome interplay between life and art, between actual violence and images of violence in a variety of literary texts, paintings, and films. Rather than exclude murder from critical consideration by dismissing it as a crime, Black urges us to ponder the killer's artistic role -- and our own experience as audience, witness, or voyeur. Black examines murder as a recurring, obsessive theme in the Romantic tradition, approaching the subject from an aesthetic rather than a moral, psychological, or philosophical perspective. And he brings into his discussion contemporary instances of sensational murders and assassinations, treating these as mimetic or cathartic activities in their own right. Combining historical documentation with theoretical insights, Black shows that the possibilities of representing violence -- and of experiencing it -- as art were recognized early in the nineteenth century as logical extensions of Romantic theories of the sublime. Since then, both traditional art forms and the modern mass media have contributed to the growing aestheticization of daily experience -- including murder, suicide, and terrorism."--Book cover.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 229-266) and index.