“The mystery of Marie Rogêt” by Edgar Allan Poe: literature and society in the United States in the 19th century

Abstract

The objective of this article is to present a reflection about “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt”, the second detective story written by the North-American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), aiming at revealing the historical contradictions represented in its form, especially in relation to the formal rigor principle, so important in the writer’s work, and its execution in this specific short story and in the investigation carried out by the detective Dupin. The study of this story is especially important in the context of the author’s works and of the other literary works then produced, once it represents a formal innovation both in relation to works of other existing genres and in relation to the first detective story written by Poe, “The Murders in the rue Morgue”. It is also interesting to notice the permanence of several elements peculiar to this form in several other artistic manifestations nowadays, which also indicates the permanence of important historical questions raised in that historical context of economic and urban growth in the United States in the 19th century.