# Modeling the Construction of a Literary Archetype: The Case of the Detective Figure in French Literature

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.00627 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.00627/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 5 of its 42 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 1 Nov 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [UMAP: Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection for Dimension Reduction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.03426/) (2018)
- [CamemBERT: a Tasty French Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.03894/) (2019)
- [An Annotated Dataset of Coreference in English Literature](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01140/) (2019)
- [The Elephant in the Coreference Room: Resolving Coreference in Full-Length French Fiction Works](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.15594/) (2025)
- [Latent Structures of Intertextuality in French Fiction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.17759/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Closing the Gap at CRAC 2026: Two-Stage Adaptation for LLM-Based Multilingual Coreference Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.16984/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

This research explores the evolution of the detective archetype in French detective fiction through computational analysis. Using quantitative methods and character-level embeddings, we show that a supervised model is able to capture the unity of the detective archetype across 150 years of literature, from M. Lecoq (1866) to Commissaire Adamsberg (2017). Building on this finding, the study demonstrates how the detective figure evolves from a secondary narrative role to become the central character and the "reasoning machine" of the classical detective story. In the aftermath of the Second World War, with the importation of the hardboiled tradition into France, the archetype becomes more complex, navigating the genre's turn toward social violence and moral ambiguity.