| Abstract: | As social and literary critic Max Nordau (1849–1923), who was on the lookout of traces of the artist’s degeneration in literary texts, we will assume that “that individual character expresses (and thus reveals) itself most coherently through the medium of literary writing” and “that literary works exert a profound influence over the shape and ‘health’ of a culture” (Arata, Loss 55). This means that I will take into account Conan Doyle’s personal concerns while looking for signs that enable Sherlock Holmes to function as the middleclass’ barricade against degeneration. This position assumes that Sherlock Holmes was an important factor in the protection of the ‘health’ of the English identity, which does not, however, necessarily mean he was unambiguous. To this end, a preliminary exploration of the development of evolution and degeneration theory will be given in sections 1.1 and 1.2, respectively, which will serve illustrate how these initially scientific concepts were translated to the popular spheres. Aware of the fact that these introductory sections are necessarily reductive, I wish to stress that there I concentrate more on how these concepts spread into and were assimilated by the popular spheres. This will focus on the effects of these two revolutionary scientific developments and on the late Victorian interpretation of both more than on the notions themselves. In section 1.3 I sketch some concluding remarks which will serve as a general overview of how these scientific discourses resulted in the multiplication of identities. Chapter 2 will serve two purposes. First, section 2.1 will examine one of the most important identity issues of the time, namely, the fear that Britain’s degenerate colonial ‘others’ would infect the metropolis. Though I will take into account A Study in Scarlet and The Hound of the Baskervilles, my main focus of interest will be The Sign of the Four. Section 2.2 will take a look at Sherlock Holmes celebrated ‘science of deduction’ and argue how the scientifically inclined method of detection of Study and Sign, as it is mostly remembered today, shifted into the ‘scientific use of the imagination’ in The Hound of the Baskervilles. In this chapter I will consider fragments from Study, Sign and selected short stories, whose considerations of the former concept will serve as contrast with the analysis of the latter in Hound. I evidently take into account that the latter was published a decade after the detective had been killed off. These angles will permit to examine the Late Victorian period through a domestic and imperial lens |
