What connects the Romantic essays of Thomas De Quincey and the violent cinema of Brian De Palma? Or the "beautiful" suicides of Hedda Gabler Yukio Mishima? Or the shootings of pop star John Lennon and President Ronald Reagon? In "The Aesthetics of Murder", Joel Black explores the sometimes gruesome interplay between life and art, between actual violence and images of violence in a variety of literary texts, paintings, and films. Rather than exclude...