“Sherlock Holmes aficionados distinguish between literary criticism that is ‘Watsonian’ in perspective, and criticism that is ‘Doylist’. As any fan knows, the stories were written by Arthur Conan Doyle as a first-person narrative; they purport to be the work of John Watson, who is recounting the exploits of his brilliant friend and sometime-roommate, Sherlock Holmes. Fans who analyze the stories, then, have a choice: They can take an ‘outsider’ perspective and discuss them as works of fiction authored by the real-life person Arthur Conan Doyle, or they can take an ‘in-universe’ perspective and discuss them as the actual literary product of John Watson, unreliable narrator …” (more)
[Ann Lipton, Business Law Prof Blog, 17 September]
First posted 2020-09-18 05:23:02
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