THE LABYRINTH: REVISITED AND REINHABITED. INTERPRETING THE MINOAN MYTH AS A METAPHOR FOR CONTEMPORARY CULTURE
THE LABYRINTH: REVISITED AND REINHABITED. INTERPRETING THE MINOAN MYTH AS A METAPHOR FOR CONTEMPORARY CULTURE

Summary/Abstract: This article reconstructs and interprets the evolution of the Minoan myth’sreception in literature, fine arts, and urban development during the twentiethcentury. The author’s understanding of this evolution is based on three assumptions:a) myth is a polysemantic symbol of metaphysical and historical originsand function; b) myth reflects the relationship of the cognitive vs. creativemechanisms of human activity; and c) as symbolic, myth’s form must be treatedas an image as much as it is a (discursive) narrative. As a motif in literature andthe arts, the Minoan myth in particular has displayed all three of these aspectsby allowing first its heroic narrative and, more recently, its formal structure(i.e., the tragic maze of moral and intellectual values) and visual setting (i.e., theactual labyrinth) to serve as porte-paroles of ongoing social and civilisationaltransformations: aestheticisation, deconstruction of cognitive and political hierarchies,technicisation, and intensive urbanisation. The displacement of the narrativeand of the figure of the Minotaur is interpreted from the perspectives ofpsychoanalysis and post-structuralism.

• Details
• Contents