Genres of criminal literature (special course for students of philological specialty)

Presented methodological complex formed the basis of the special course “Genres crime literature”, delivered by the author-compiler of the historical-philological faculty of the Institute for Philology and History of Russian State Humanitarian University. The main goal of the course for 26 hours (including 10 hours - lecture and 16 - seminars), is to acquaint students with various philological trends and issues in the study of crime literature. The status of crime literature determined as metagenre raises the question of delimitation genres area and adequate description of their structure. Particular attention is paid to the four major genres of criminal literature: the classical detective story, adventure inquiry, police novel and victim’s inquiry. The proposed analytical framework is based on three-dimensional model of the genre by M.M. Bakhtin.