The Cult of Excess at the Dawn of Spain’s Criminal Imaginary

Abstract

Abstract: How can a murder be excessively represented to set it apart from other notable crimes? This article explores, through a number of representative cases, the construction of excess as criminal category, one in itself overwhelming, borrowing resources from preexisting genres. Mass and serial murder, the use of numbers, chain structures, and folkloric archetypes and formulae will be examined, within a very particular cultural marketplace filled with not only quantitative but qualitative traits.Keywords: mass and serial murder, criminal event, excess, quantity and quality, killing systems, formulae and motifs, narrative patterns.