Often, scholars of sensation fiction (as well as sensation fiction’s contemporary Victorian critics) argue that the genre was primarily deemed ‘sensational’ for its focus upon carefully constructed, formulaic plots of mystery, crime, and violence. Patrick Brantlinger, who wrote the oft-quoted essay “What is ‘Sensational’ About the ‘Sensation Novel’?,” maintains the traditional critical view that the […]

My previous blog post discussed the significance of literary places and the uses of narrative setting to establish character and suspense in Gillian Flynn’s 2012 novel Gone Girl. As I originally quoted, Franco Moretti has asserted that literary maps enable literary scholars to ascertain “’emerging’ qualities, which were not visible at the lower level,” the lower […]