犯罪文学发展的重要一环:19世纪初英国新门派犯罪小说

＂新门派小说＂是指在19世纪初风行于英国、以传奇化的犯罪描写为主要特征的一类犯罪小说。它从18世纪的哥特式小说和历史传奇那里继承了很多＂煽色腥＂元素,又用悬疑和推理为后来侦探文学的兴起做了铺垫,成为犯罪文学发展过程中的重要一环。因其对犯罪行为的过度浪漫化虚构以及道德立场的含混性,新门派小说曾长期被评论家视为文学垃圾的代表。但随着犯罪文学研究的不断深入,有关它的艺术价值以及在英国文学史上的地位和贡献问题,也开始得到重新认识。

Thriving in the 1830s＇ England, Newgate fiction refers to a genre of crime novel which features romanciticized representation of crime. With its inheritance of sensationalism from the 18th century gothic novel and historical romance, and its adoption of suspense and reasoning in plotting, it paves the way for the rise of detective novel, hence becoming an important stage in the development of crime literature. Because of its moral ambiguity and the excess of romanticization of crime, Newgate novel had been depreciated by literary critics as rubbish. With the deepening of crime novel studies in the past years, however, researchers begin to reevaluate its merits as well as its significance in the history of British literature.