Book contents
- Modernism and Finance Capital
- Modernism and Finance Capital
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I From Victorian Character to Modernist Professional
- Chapter 1 Finance Capital and the Value Form of Character in Anthony Trollope’s Palliser Series
- Chapter 2 Detecting Modernist Form and the New Professional
- Chapter 3 Speculating Subjects
- Part II Finance Capital and the Economic and Cultural Turn toward London
- Part III Modernism, Affect, and the Rise of the Modern Corporation
- Conclusion
- Works Cited
- Index
Chapter 2 - Detecting Modernist Form and the New Professional
The Moonstone and A Study in Scarlet
from Part I - From Victorian Character to Modernist Professional
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 December 2024
- Modernism and Finance Capital
- Modernism and Finance Capital
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I From Victorian Character to Modernist Professional
- Chapter 1 Finance Capital and the Value Form of Character in Anthony Trollope’s Palliser Series
- Chapter 2 Detecting Modernist Form and the New Professional
- Chapter 3 Speculating Subjects
- Part II Finance Capital and the Economic and Cultural Turn toward London
- Part III Modernism, Affect, and the Rise of the Modern Corporation
- Conclusion
- Works Cited
- Index
Summary
This chapter explores how The Moonstone and A Study in Scarlet are interested in finance capital even though they do not appear to concern themselves with such questions. They are both interested in the collapse of character as value form and in the appearance of professional class characters. As the earlier novel, The Moonstone remains committed to the ethical universe of class society and shores up the value form of character. As such, it serves as a point of contrast to A Study in Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes novel. Traditionally marginalized in literary studies as an example of popular detective fiction, A Study in Scarlet can be read as a proto-modernist novel that participates in the historical process of finance capital in two ways: It orients its ethical universe around the emerging professional society, and its structure refuses to resolve contradictions in the legibility of character.
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- Information
- Modernism and Finance CapitalBritish Literature, 1870–1940, pp. 55 - 64Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024