Thomas de Quincey’s On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts or when Ethics Becomes a Matter of Taste
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17851/2317-2096.20.3.193-209Keywords:
literature and murder, bare life, sublime, literature and realityAbstract
The text presents an analysis of Thomas De Quincey’s book On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts, published in 1827 in Blackwood’s Magazine. The interpretation is based on some concepts and ideas developed by Walter Benjamin (“critique of Gewalt [violence/power]”, “sacrifice” and “bare life”) and by Freud (Unheimlich, murder of the father of the primal horde). It discusses De Quincey’s publication in the context of a large tradition that dates back from Antiquity (tragedy theory) and goes up to the theory of the sublime. In this tradition, literature is considered a scene of a murder. De Quincey’s text is also seen as a forerunner of the detective novel and of New Journalism.
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