The Mystery to a Solution: Poe, Borges, and the Analytic Detective Story

by John T. Irwin

Overview

Winner of the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Comparative Literary Studies from the Modern Language AssociationWinner of the Christian Gauss Award from the Phi Beta Kappa Society

In The Mystery to a Solution, John Irwin brilliantly examines the deeper significance of the analytical detective genre which Poe created and the meaning of Borges' efforts to "double" the genre's origins one hundred years later. Combining history, literary history, and practical and speculative criticism, Irwin pursues the issues underlying the detective story into areas as various as the history of mathematics, classical mythology, the double-mirror structure of self-consciousness, the anthropology of Evans and Frazer, the structure of chess, the mind-body problem, the etymology of the word labyrinth, and dozens of other topics. Irwin mirrors the aesthetic impact of the genre by creating in his study the dynamics of a detective story—the uncovering of mysteries, the accumulation of evidence, the tracing of clues, and the final solution that ties it all together.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801854668
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	12/01/1993
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	512
Sales rank:	316,448
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.15(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

John T. Irwin is the Decker Professor in the Humanities at the Johns Hopkins University, where he formerly served as chair of the Writing Seminars. His previous books include The Mystery to a Solution: Poe, Borges, and the Analytic Detective Story, recipient of the Modern Language Association’s Scaglione Prize for Comparative Literary Studies and Phi Beta Kappa's Christian Gauss Prize.

What People are Saying About This

J. Hillis Miller

John Irwin has written another wonderful book.

From the Publisher

John Irwin has written another wonderful book.
—J. Hillis Miller

A masterful blend of literary criticism, philosophy, game theory, classical learning, the history of science, and the occult.
—Eric J. Sundquist

Eric J. Sundquist

A masterful blend of literary criticism, philosophy, game theory, classical learning, the history of science, and the occult.

Editorial Reviews

This is a fine book . . . Irwin has travelled far and profitably, indeed, into the history of chess, into geometry and algebra, into mythology, into alchemy, into the culture of labyrinths, and more besides.
—John Sturrock, Times Literary Supplement

[Irwin] has probed the labyrinthine depths principally of Poe and Borges, using the analytic tools of Jung, Lacan, and Derrida, and a score of other psychological interpreters of fiction . . . The result is dazzling.
—America

[A] learned, capacious, and ultimately amazing book.
—Virginia Quarterly Review

From the Publisher

"[Irwin] has probed the labyrinthine depths principally of Poe and Borges, using the analytic tools of Jung, Lacan, and Derrida, and a score of other psychological interpreters of fiction... The result is dazzling."

America

[A] learned, capacious, and ultimately amazing book.

Virginia Quarterly Review

Traces Borges' development and interpretation of the analytic detective genre begun by Poe. Combines history, literary history, and practical and speculative criticism to examine the issues underlying the detective genre and their sources in mathematics, classical mythology, Jungian psychology, religion, alchemy and other areas. Includes b&w diagrams and illustrations. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

This is a fine book . . . Irwin has travelled far and profitably, indeed, into the history of chess, into geometry and algebra, into mythology, into alchemy, into the culture of labyrinths, and more besides.

Times Literary Supplement - John Sturrock

[Irwin] has probed the labyrinthine depths principally of Poe and Borges, using the analytic tools of Jung, Lacan, and Derrida, and a score of other psychological interpreters of fiction . . . The result is dazzling.

America