Adventure, Mystery, and Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture (Phoenix Series)

In this first general theory for the analysis of popular literary formulas, John G. Cawelti reveals the artistry that underlies the best in formulaic literature. Cawelti discusses such seemingly diverse works as Mario Puzo's The Godfather, Dorothy Sayers's The Nine Tailors, and Owen Wister's The Virginian in the light of his hypotheses about the cultural function of formula literature. He describes the most important artistic characteristics of popular formula stories and the differences between this literature and that commonly labeled "high" or "serious" literature. He also defines the archetypal patterns of adventure, mystery, romance, melodrama, and fantasy, and offers a tentative account of their basis in human psychology.

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Design of This Book

1. The Study of Literary Formulas

Formulas, Genres, and Archetypes

The Artistic Characteristics of Formula Literature

Formulas and Culture

2. Notes toward a Typology of Literary Formulas

Adventure

Romance

Mystery

Melodrama

Alien Beings or States

3. The Mythology of Crime and Its Formulaic Embodiments

The Godfather and the Literature of Crime

Elements of the New Formula

The Cultural Function of Popular Crime Formulas

4. The Formula of the Classical Detective Story

Patterns of the Formula

Cultural Background of the Formula

5. The Art of the Classical Detective Story

Central Artistic Problems of the Genre

Artistic Failures and Successes: Christie and Sayers

The Art of Simenon

Detective Stories and Detection as an Element in Other Literary Genres

The Future of the Classical Detective Story

6. The Hard-Boiled Detective Story

Hard-boiled and Classical Detective Stories

Patterns of the Formula

Cultural Backgrounds of the Formula

7. Hammett, Chandler, and Spillane

8. The Western: A Look at the Evolution of a Formula

Cooper and the Beginnings of the Western Formula

Nick of the Woods and the Dime Novel

Wister's Virginian and the Modern Western

Zane Grey and W. S. Hart: The Romantic Western of the 1920s

The Classic Western: John Ford and Others

The Jewish Cowboy, the Black Avenger, and the Return of the Vanishing American: Current Trends in the Formula

9. The Best-Selling Social Melodrama

The Social Melodrama

The Aesthetics of Social Melodrama

The Evolution of Social Melodrama

Irving Wallace

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliographical Notes

Index