Adventure, Mystery, and Romance

"Danger, mystery, and excitement on page one; action, violence, and sex on page two. What more do we expect from our "light" reading: crime stories, mysterious, western, or social melodrama? If this were all, it would take no skill to write bestselling fiction. In advance, mystery and romance, John G. Cawelti provides the first general theory for the analysis of popular literary formulas and 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. These groundbreaking theories are then put to the test as Cawelti reviews various detective stories to demonstrate how formulas can be defined and compared. The artistic qualities of the classical detective story are revealed in discussions of such works as Agatha Christie's Third Girl and George Simenon's Maigret and the Reluctant Witness. A careful study of three "hard-boiled" detective writers-Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Mickey Spillane-illustrates the wide range of artistic quality that is possible within this formula. In "The Western; A Look at the Evolution of a Formula, "Cawelti presents a historical perspective on the myth of the West- Beginning with James Fenimore Cooper and including Owen Wister, Zane Grey, and the films of W.S Hart- to show how literary formulas are influenced by changing attitudes and circumstances in society. A final section applies the concepts and methods developed in earlier chapters to the best-selling models of Irving Wallace.'-Publisher