Reading & Composition
THE ART OF MURDER: AESTHETICS AND CRIME IN LITERATURE AND FILM
Is there such a thing as the perfect crime? Can murder be considered beautiful or artistic? What exactly is the relationship between art and murder? In this class, we will be exploring the gruesome interplay between violence and beauty in literature and film. We will start with essays by De Quincey and Oscar Wilde, both of whom advocate for an aesthetic appreciation of murder. We will look at texts where crimes are presented as beautiful masterpieces, where murderers see themselves as artists, and where detectives consider the act of solving a crime as an artistic or intellectual pastime. We will also be questioning the role of ethics in our examination of the aesthetics of crime: if a murder is artistically beautiful, then can it exist outside of moral considerations? If a detective succeeds in solving a crime by “becoming” the killer (i.e. identifying completely with the criminal’s mind), then is the detective’s own morality compromised? In our study of films for this course, we will examine how the dark art world, with its murderous painters and corrupt art collectors, is represented visually on the big screen. This class includes two formal papers and places strong emphasis on active student participation.
Texts:
Balzac, The Girl with the Golden Eyes
Baudelaire, “A Martyr,” “Mademoiselle Bistouri”
De Quincey, “On Murder, Considered As One of the Fine Arts”
Wilde, “Pen, Poison, and Paper” and The Picture of Dorian Gray
Poe, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”
Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles
Chandler, “The Simple Art of Murder”
Caspary, Laura
Nabokov, Lolita
Films:
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Scarlet Street
Laura