ABSTRACT
Detective fiction has undergone many formal and thematic transformations but its core remains unchanged: it seeks to assert the truth. Roland Barthes regards this literary genre as the most typical example of what he calls “hermeneutic code” in fiction (“Voice of Truth”)—a narrative that constructs an enigma, introduces suspense, and finally discloses the secret (1990, 47). It is not a coincidence that detective fiction grew in popularity in the second half of the nineteenth century when the common understanding of truth was largely influenced by two phenomena: a massive production of fictitious narratives and the development of historical disciplines such as evolutionary biology, archaeology, and cosmology. The first phenomenon may relate to the long-lasting process of secularization and its defiance against scripture as a narrative that explains the world. Since the sacred ‘master plot’ was no longer reliable (Brooks 1992, 6), narratives that helped to organize and reformulate individual and social life gained a new sense of urgency. The second phenomenon concerns the conviction that the truth about some fundamental aspects of the world (the origin of the solar system, the provenance of man, etc.) can be asserted by the analysis of empirical data. A variety of developments contributed to the interest in empirical evidence. They involved Charles Darwin’s analyses of animals and plants that laid the foundation for his theory of evolution; archaeological research of historical layers of Hissarlik, believed to be a historical site of Homer’s Troy; and the paleontological study of fossils, which enabled the determination of the historical development of living organisms. In this way, secularization and science brought about the rise of detective fiction and helped maintain its popularity as a literary genre that continues to provide, in the words of Lawrence Frank, a “narrative model for arriving at the truth of the moment” (2003, 29).
