Doyle’s Diogenes Club: a Delightful Oddity Screening a Metatextual Clue
In this paper I propose to study Mycroft Holmes’s club in the Sherlock Holmes stories: the Diogenes Club is rather close to an oxymoron as the golden rule is that the members are not allowed to speak to one another. I will show how this textual detail, that eminently Doylian delicious paradox, can r...
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Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée
2015-06-01
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| Series: | Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens |
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| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/cve/1984 |
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| author | Nathalie Jaëck |
| author_facet | Nathalie Jaëck |
| author_sort | Nathalie Jaëck |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | In this paper I propose to study Mycroft Holmes’s club in the Sherlock Holmes stories: the Diogenes Club is rather close to an oxymoron as the golden rule is that the members are not allowed to speak to one another. I will show how this textual detail, that eminently Doylian delicious paradox, can read as a rather elaborate parody of the ambivalence of Victorian clubs, where the ideal of sociability cohabits with a more dissident taste for secrecy and seclusion. It can also read as a metatextual clue to the strategic importance of silence in Conan Doyle’s text. That famous inquisitive text, a positivist celebration of the powers of logos, also makes room for a crucial vindication of silence, and creates the paradoxical possibility for the text to escape the very paradigms it powerfully establishes. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-21469278306b4d7e90ea81d4615afab4 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 0220-5610 2271-6149 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2015-06-01 |
| publisher | Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens |
| spelling | doaj-art-21469278306b4d7e90ea81d4615afab42025-01-30T10:21:54ZengPresses Universitaires de la MéditerranéeCahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens0220-56102271-61492015-06-018110.4000/cve.1984Doyle’s Diogenes Club: a Delightful Oddity Screening a Metatextual ClueNathalie JaëckIn this paper I propose to study Mycroft Holmes’s club in the Sherlock Holmes stories: the Diogenes Club is rather close to an oxymoron as the golden rule is that the members are not allowed to speak to one another. I will show how this textual detail, that eminently Doylian delicious paradox, can read as a rather elaborate parody of the ambivalence of Victorian clubs, where the ideal of sociability cohabits with a more dissident taste for secrecy and seclusion. It can also read as a metatextual clue to the strategic importance of silence in Conan Doyle’s text. That famous inquisitive text, a positivist celebration of the powers of logos, also makes room for a crucial vindication of silence, and creates the paradoxical possibility for the text to escape the very paradigms it powerfully establishes.https://journals.openedition.org/cve/1984clubsDoyle (Arthur Conan)SherlocksilenceVictorian |
| spellingShingle | Nathalie Jaëck Doyle’s Diogenes Club: a Delightful Oddity Screening a Metatextual Clue Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens clubs Doyle (Arthur Conan) Sherlock silence Victorian |
| title | Doyle’s Diogenes Club: a Delightful Oddity Screening a Metatextual Clue |
| title_full | Doyle’s Diogenes Club: a Delightful Oddity Screening a Metatextual Clue |
| title_fullStr | Doyle’s Diogenes Club: a Delightful Oddity Screening a Metatextual Clue |
| title_full_unstemmed | Doyle’s Diogenes Club: a Delightful Oddity Screening a Metatextual Clue |
| title_short | Doyle’s Diogenes Club: a Delightful Oddity Screening a Metatextual Clue |
| title_sort | doyle s diogenes club a delightful oddity screening a metatextual clue |
| topic | clubs Doyle (Arthur Conan) Sherlock silence Victorian |
| url | https://journals.openedition.org/cve/1984 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT nathaliejaeck doylesdiogenesclubadelightfuloddityscreeningametatextualclue |