Sherlock Holmes, the man for our conflicted age

We happen to be in a Sherlock Holmesian moment.

The fall brings a new season of the CBS series Elementary, featuring a contemporary Holmes with a female Watson. The popular British-American series Sherlock, with an autistic-spectrum Holmes (played by heartthrob Benedict Cumberbatch), has completed its third season and is planning a December special. A third in the blockbuster movie franchise, Sherlock Holmes, a period adaptation with an action-hero Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr., is underway. We also have a probable Oscar contender in the 2015 Mr. Holmes, starring Ian McKellan as a physically failing but still acute Sherlock in retirement.

There have been Holmesian moments before, beginning with Arthur Conan Doyle's introduction of the character in 1887 in A Study in Scarlet. So popular was Holmes at his inception that when Conan Doyle decided to kill him off in the early 1890s, the public outcry persuaded him to bring him back, concocting the excuse that Holmes had faked his death.

The appeal of Sherlock Holmes during this early period seems connected to the 19th-century fin de siècle climate: at once decadent and progressive, weary and hopeful. Holmes' solitary lifestyle and addiction to opium, alongside his unerring ability to ensure that justice be served, seemed to fit well with the spirit of the age.

Other Holmesian moments have come at fairly regular intervals and have highlighted other aspects of the character. In the 1920s and '30s, when the major comic-book superheroes were invented, Holmes was another savior figure for Depression-era, pre-World War II society.

In the 1970s and '80s, many of the adaptations and spin-offs were satirical takes on the Holmesian persona, in step with the post-Vietnam era's tendency to dismantle iconic figures and myths.

Our present Holmesian moment seems particularly attuned to the idiosyncratic aspect of the character. We are now sympathetic to Holmes' addictive tendencies and his quirky manners and habits. Cumberbatch's performance connects well to the rise of Asperger's  syndrome in our society; Downey's sexually ambiguous Holmes to a postmodern discomfort with sexual binaries.

Moreover, the current representations of Holmes tap into something rarely acknowledged in the character that was strongly present in his creator. Arthur Conan Doyle, though a physician, had a decidedly spiritual bent. He believed, until the end of his life, that a medium had put him in touch with his dead son.

The current Holmesian moment emphasizes qualities in the character that are more like Conan Doyle's than previous interpretations have allowed. I was alerted to this aspect of Holmes through a course being offered at Drexel University.

Taught by philosophy professor Fred Abbate, the seminar is titled "The Mind of Sherlock Holmes: Philosophy, Logical Theory and Scientific Reasoning." It is enormously popular with students. The reason for its popularity, I would suggest, is that Abbate's take on Holmes has an appeal in today's culture.

Abbate's syllabus explains his view of the character: "Holmes' stories suggest much more than logical skill. His approach often gives us a model of 'mindfulness,' the ability to break through to the relevant explanation. Was this 'intuition' or some other gift most of us mortals will never have?"

Abbate is tapping into something about Sherlock Holmes that is reflective of our age, namely that Holmes is more, or perhaps less, than the consummate rationalist. He is an expert in disguise, a master of arcane knowledge, a connector to disparate worlds and perspectives. He backs up his findings with facts, but his initial understanding is intuitive and not entirely rational.

In each of the adaptations currently popular, this aspect of the character is in evidence. In each case, Holmes must supplement ratiocination with other skills and techniques that may at times supplant or even oppose uninflected reason.

The film Mr. Holmes brings this home with special poignancy by showing that Holmes in his prime missed a crucial clue in an old case because he was not attuned to its spiritual and psychological aspect. The fact that he does grasp what he had missed (though too late to save a life) fleshes out his character and gives us the complete Holmes.

And the complete Holmes is precisely the kind of hero we seem to crave in our current climate. We want reason leavened by passion and spiritual insight. We cling to our individuality to the point of eccentricity, but we are hungry for the uplift of connectedness and shared values. It is notable that, in most of the recent adaptations, Watson is a true helpmate rather than a bungler or mere scribe.

Holmes managed to synthesize disparate states of being and ways of knowing. As such, he is a man for our conflicted and needy age. If only he weren't a fictional character, he could run for president.

Paula Marantz Cohen is a distinguished professor of English and dean of the Pennoni Honors College at Drexel University.  cohenpm@drexel.edu