En este ensayo se hace una hermenéutica del mito del Minotauro y su laberinto, utilizando como código de lectura una clasificación de: espacio / contenido, la cual se descubre en las dos imágenes fundamentales de una estancia oculta-misteriosa y su habitante, igualmente extraño y temido. A partir de ese taxón binario se leen cuatro instancias universales de la condición antrópica: La mente (inconsciente), la cognición con sus objetos de saber, la dimensión del ser como instancia de una mismidad y la (...) esfera del poder también con sus objetos, todo ello en relación metafórica con los dos elementos operativos del código: el laberinto (como espacio delimitador entre lo visible –aparente, conocido, regularizado- y lo ‘invisible’ – escondido, desconocido, sujeto a otras ‘regulaciones’) y el Minotauro (como contenido de los espacios ‘laberínticos’ de la conciencia, el saber, el ser y el poder). (shrink)

We are entering an era in which “cultural construction of the body” refers to a literal technological enterprise. This era was anticipated in the 1920s by geneticist J. B. S. Haldane in a lecture which inspired Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. In that lecture, Haldane reinterpreted the Greek myth of Daedalus and the Minotaur as heroic fable. Seventy years later another geneticist, François Jacob, used the same myth as cautionary tale. Here I explain the Minotaur's “genetic” monstrosity in (...) terms of disability and hybridity, using the movie Gattaca to argue that ancient fears of monstrously disabled bodies are being recycled as bioethics. (shrink)

The domestic spaces of the built environment are traditionally associated with residential architecture. But the domestic spaces can also extend out, metaphorically, into familiar public spaces in which one may feel at home, and also extend inwards into self-perception, insofar as you may say that you dwell within yourself. This article begins by recalling Vitruvius’ fundamental notion of architectural utilitas concerns accommodating not a building’s owners but foreigners and strange outsiders. Vitruvius’ view on utility heavily favoured architecture’s socio-political function, and (...) the guests he believed that architecture ought to accommodate were not merely a home’s owners or their visiting friends, but those people who are more distant from a home’s owners: those who are stranger and less well understood, known as xenos and who ought to be respected under the Ancient Greek religious and ethical principle of xenia. It is on these grounds that Vitruvius makes an ethical critique of residential architecture in favour of the virtue of public architecture. Next the reach of xenia is proposed to extend towards those who are different not merely because of ethnic differences but cognitive and sensory differences. Such accommodations are today accounted for as part of accessibility design and salutogenic design. Similar conceptions are noted in Nietzsche’s notion of an “architecture for the perceptive” and the surrealist’s interpretation of the minotaur as a hybrid not only of animal and human but a hybrid of civilised citizen and barbarian outsider. Together these sketch out an expanded sense of the domestic that includes public spaces designed to accommodate strange outsiders and the hybrid forms used to signify them. (shrink)

In this paper we address the ethical challenges of research on cytoplasmic hybrid embryos, or “cybrids”. The controversial pronouncement of the UK’s Human Embryology and Fertilisation Authority of September 2007 on the permissibility of this area of research is the starting point of our discussion, and we argue in its favour. By a rigorous definition of the entities at issue, we show how the terms “chimera” and “hybrid” are improper in the case of cybrids, and how their use can bias (...) the debate creating moral prejudices. After analysing the scientific aspects of cybrids research and sketching out current alternatives, we enter the ethical debate, starting from the premise that research on early human embryos is ethically permissible under some circumstances. We emphasise how research on cybrids has positive consequences in terms of scientific and therapeutic applications, since it allows the derivation of human embryonic stem cells genetically tailored to the somatic cell donor. Such cell lines offer a unique in vitro model both for studies of human pathogenesis and for drug screening and discovery. Research on cybrids also circumvents the problem of the scarcity of human oocytes and their ethically dubious donation. Finally, we object to the most common arguments against cybrids research, that is, moral repugnance, the slippery slope argument, the appeal to “nature”, and the unfair distribution of economical resources. (shrink)

Moral inversion, the fusion of skepticism and utopianism, is a preoccupying theme in Polanyi’s work from 1946 onward. In part 1, the author analyzes Polanyi’s complex account of the intellectual developments that are implicated in a cascade of inversions in which the good is lost through complicated, misguided, and unrealistic dedication to the good. Parts 2 and 3 then address two of the most basic of the objections to Polanyi’s theory voiced by Zdzislaw Najder. To Najder’s complaint that Polanyi is (...) not clear in his use of the term “moral,” the author replies that the pivotal distinction in Polanyi’s moral theory is not the moral against the intellectual, but the passions against the appetites. In considering Najder’s complaint that Polanyi’s argument represents a naive instance of ethnocentric absolutism, the author undertakes to show Polanyi’s consistency and perspectival self-awareness by focusing on Polanyi’s account of authority and dissent within a tradition, as well as on Polanyi’s treatment of persuasion as a heuristic passion. (shrink)

Summary This paper investigates the ties of the Statilius family to the Caesarian party and to Roman politics more generally during the last decades of the Roman Republic. After establishing the gens Statilia's origin and potential political position in Lucania, it contests earlier suppositions about what started the family's prominence in Rome proper. The paper argues that, instead of the Statilii catapulting into prominence at Rome during the time of the Augustan novus homo Titus Statilius Taurus, their involvement began earlier, (...) as part of the equestrian branch of the conspiratorial followers of Catiline, a datum which might provide enlightenment about the „missing clients“ of Julius Caesar's early career. (shrink)

The essays in this collection, though ranging in their keys from the teacherly to the scholarly, are united by their search for the deepest questions Plato gives us. The title essay on the Republic is a paradigm case, exploring with a mix of speculative daring and Socratic pleasure in aporia the ring structure of the dialogue, the emergent perspective of a "knowing soul," dianoetic eikasia, and the implicit presence of the One and the Dyad in the metaphysical figures of the (...) central books. See also, especially, the two essays on the Phaedo's legacy of questions and the Minotaurs that threaten it. (shrink)

The title of Charles Taliaferro’s book is derived from poems and stories in which a person in peril or on a quest must follow a cord or string in order to find the way to happiness, safety, or home. In one of the most famous of such tales, the ancient Greek hero Theseus follows the string given him by Ariadne to mark his way in and out of the Minotaur’s labyrinth. William Blake's poem “Jerusalem” uses the metaphor of a (...) golden string, which, if followed, will lead one to heaven itself. Taliaferro extends Blake’s metaphor to illustrate the ways we can link what we see, feel, and do with deep spiritual realities. Taliaferro offers a foundational case for the recognition of the experience of the eternal God of Christianity, in which God is understood as the fount of all goodness and the subject and object of our best love, revealed through scripture, tradition, philosophical reflection, and encountered in everyday events. He addresses philosophical obstacles to the recognition of such experiences, especially objections from the “new atheists,” and explores the values involved in thinking and experiencing God as eternal. These include the belief that the eternal goodness of God subordinates temporal goods, such as the pursuit of fame and earthly glory; that God is the essence of life; and that the eternal God hallows domestic goods, blessing the everyday goods of ordinary life. An exploration of the moral and spiritual riches of the Christian tradition as an alternative to materialism and naturalism, _The Golden Cord_ brings an originality and depth to the debate in accessible and engaging prose. “Charles Taliaferro has written a thought-provoking, original work that succeeds in throwing some of the central tenets of naturalism into question. He has gathered cutting-edge scholarship from the context of debates about naturalism and discusses that within the framework of a theological account of the human condition. The result is a robust theological response to secular naturalism, one that deserves to be taken seriously by the latter’s proponents.” —_Victoria Harrison, University of Glasgow_. (shrink)

Preface to the second edition -- Preface to the first edition -- Psycho-mythology : meschugge? -- Dreams and fantasies : manifestations 0f the mythological unconscious -- African-American dreaming and the "lion in the path" : racism and the cultural unconscious -- "Hapless" the Centaur : an archetypal image, amplification, and active imagination -- Pegasus and visionary experience : from the white winged horse to the "flying red horse" -- The bull, the labyrinth, and the Minotaur : from archaeology to (...) "archetypology" (with an apology to Ariadne) -- Griffins, gold, and dinosaurs : mythology and "fantastic paleontology" -- Dreaming of a unicorn : a comparison of Lacanian and Jungian interpretation -- "Destiny" and the call to heroism : a dream of vocation and individuation -- List of publications by Michael Vannoy Adams. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Virtual GalleryHans Bellmer (bio) Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 1. Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 2. Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 3. Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 4. Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 5. Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 6. Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 7. Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 8. Click (...) for larger view View full resolutionFigure 9.Hans Bellmer Hans Bellmer (1902–1975), whose early work was published by Le Minotaure, is perhaps best known for Die Puppe, his variations on the Doll. The engravings in this issue were made for the 1955 edition of Georges Bataille’s novel Madame Edwarda [© 1996 Artists Rights Society (ARS), N. Y./ADAGP, Paris].Copyright © 1996 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Plutarch's Ariadne in Chariton's Chaereas and CallirhoeEdmund P. CuevaChaereas and Callirhoe is the earliest extant Greek novel, and the only one of its genre to make extensive use of historiographical features.1 Later novelists include such features, but do not rely on them for background and structure as much as Chariton does. Accordingly, the reader of Chaereas and Callirhoe finds verifiable historical detail in the correctly assigned dates, accurately related (...) events, and realistically depicted places and figures of the novel.2The story, for example, takes place in the past, famous historical figures are included, and history has a tremendous effect on the behavior of the characters. In this way Chariton imitates the classical historians in technique, not for the purpose of masquerading as a professional historian, but rather, as Hägg suggests, to create the "effect of openly mixing fictitious characters and events with historical ones."3 This effect is partially created by the use of a historical source which deals with myth.4 [End Page 473]The introduction of the two youths in the beginning of the novel exemplifies the primary function of myth in Chariton: throughout the text the novelist assigns his leading characters analogues in the form of mythical or legendary beings.5 For example, Chaereas at different times becomes Achilles, Nireus, Hippolytus, and Alcibiades. Chariton assimilates Callirhoe to Aphrodite and Ariadne, and to a much lesser extent to Artemis, Helen, Medea, and the nymphs. Most often Chariton compares Callirhoe's loveliness to that of Aphrodite, as at the beginning of the novel: (1.1.2).Most importantly, Chariton likens Callirhoe to a sleeping Ariadne: (1.6.2). Homer (Od. 11.321–25) writes that Theseus took Ariadne from Crete to Athens but that he abandoned her on the Isle of Dia (Naxos), where she was killed by Artemis at the bidding of Dionysus. Hesiod (Theog. 947–49) relates that Dionysus took Ariadne as his wife and that Kronos made her immortal. Chariton's version in 1.6.2, therefore, loosely follows the narratives of Homer and Hesiod. The novelist introduces this myth after the heroine has been kicked into a coma by her husband, a fitting moment for the myth of Ariadne: she, like Callirhoe, suffered an injustice at the hands of someone she loved.6In the third book of the novel Chaereas attributes the disappearance of his wife to some divinity, and likens this to Dionysus' theft of Ariadne from Theseus (3.3.5). Unlike the version of the Ariadne myth found in 1.6.2, this one is slightly different. It becomes obvious that there is a specific source Chariton is using to draw upon for these various versions.I shall show that Chariton must have used Plutarch, or perhaps, though unlikely, Paeon, one of the imperial historian's sources. A narratological and verbal comparison of Plutarch's account of the adventures of Theseus and Ariadne, as found in his Theseus, and the Ariadne–like adventures of Callirhoe makes it clear that the novelist drew upon him. [End Page 474] This use of Plutarch, moreover, elucidates Chariton's attempt at historical veracity in dates, events, places, and figures.7Plutarch in Theseus associates Aphrodite with Ariadne (just as Chariton does), and supplies various accounts of the adventures of Ariadne and Theseus. These accounts are found in the works of other authors whom Plutarch names,8 and it is mainly on these stories that Chariton models his version of the Ariadne myth, especially at 3.3.5.The historian writes that Ariadne fell in love with Theseus when he arrived on the island of Crete. She gave him the clue which enabled Theseus, after killing the Minotaur, to exit the Labyrinth. The historian uses the accounts of Pherecydes ( fl. c. 550 B.C.), Demon (fl. c. 300 B.C.), Philochorus (b. 340 B.C.), and Cleidemus ( fl. c. 350 B.C.), all of whom give differing versions of the escape of Theseus, the death of the Minotaur, and of the love of Ariadne for Theseus. Cleidemus' account is of particular interest because he describes the escape of Daedalus from Crete and draws attention to the ship sent by Minos... (shrink)

Le transhumanisme contemporain est souvent rapproché de précédents dans l'entre-deux-guerres. En effet, dans l'espace européen, entre les deux conflits mondiaux, nombre de penseurs ont porté le voeu d'élever l'homme au-delà de sa condition 'naturelle' par différentes techniques, que celles-ci modifient les comportements, les corps, ou les aspirations humaines. Des intellectuels, des scientifiques, des industriels et politiques ont concouru à l'élaboration de discours qui configurent différemment les rapports entre politique et technologie. Ces discours ne se réduisent pas aisément aux catégories bien (...) identifiées de l''homme nouveau,' de l'eugénisme ou de projets d'ordre technocratique. L''Ultra-humain' de Teilhard de Chardin, le 'post-humain' de Julian Huxley, le 'super-homme' de Voronoff, le 'surhumain' de Jean Rostand, l'homme 'minotaure' d'Ortega y Gasset : autant de tentatives pour nommer une humanité qui a perdu de son évidence en face de la machine et qui, par le même et paradoxal mouvement, découvre sa part d'artificialité. En ces temps troublés, l'idée d'un homme augmenté est une idée commune en Europe.--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

If one includes the methodological preface the final argument of the Phaedo is by far the longest, as well as the one Socrates’ audience and Plato's readers are most ready to accept, and is often regarded as the one argument in the Phaedo that Plato himself accepted. Nevertheless it is also the most obscure, elusive, and frustrating of the arguments, whose intention as well as validity are in continual dispute. It has aptly been compared to an intricate maze, and while (...) it is perhaps appropriate that Socrates, who is portrayed in the dialogue as a kind of Theseus battling the Minotaur of fear of death, should finally pick his way through a labyrinth of distinctions, it is exceptionally difficult for the reader to find the thread and follow it. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:LABYRINTHINE STRATEGIES OF SACRIFICE: THE CRETANS BY EURIPIDES Giuseppe Fornari The application of René Girard's mimetic hypothesis demands drastic re-interpretation of the history of our culture. The denunciation of sacrificial violence performed first by the Hebrew Bible and then by the Gospels figures as an objective watershed in the evaluation ofcivilizations and historical periods. This new methodological and theoretical situation brings Girard's ideas into conflict with current trends toward (...) relativism. The victim is the reality at the root ofhistory, an extra-historical element that disrupts the circle of interpretation and confronts us as an absolute value demanding our commitment one way or another. The epistemological problems thus become one and the same with a frankly religious need. In an elegant and paradoxical way Girard's thought gives new, vital emphasis to the Christocentric interpretation of human history typical of patristic and medieval thought. In this light, comparison ofour Christian Western civilization with its Classical predecessor becomes crucial. For the Middle Ages Antiquity was not separate from Christianity but itsfigura (préfiguration), in a positive or negative way. Modern culture, however, starting from humanism and the Renaissance, discovered the historical dimension of Classical civilization with ever-increasing admiration until, finally, Neoclassicism set it as the great alternative to modern civilization. This tendency became openly anti-Christian first with the French revolution and then with thinkers like Nietzsche and Heidegger. The very identity of Western culture is determined by its varying attitudes toward Classical Antiquity and Christianity, to such an extent that the different periods in history could be subdivided accordingly. The comparison is like asking ourselves 164Giuseppe Fornari what we would be without Christianity, or who we are and what Christianity is. The radical nature of these questions and the overall development of our culture therefore confirm Girard's radical, metahistorical model. Classical civilization is the inevitable touchstone for this trans-historical question of identity. The comparison is fascinating and complex, and it cannot be dismissed simply by juxtaposing victimary awareness and blindness. Girard himself in Violence and the Sacred notes the profound investigation of mimetic violence in Greek tragedy and pre-Socratic philosophy.1 Further research of my own into these aspects of Greek civilization confirms and widens the analysis, revealing a surprisingly varied and dramatic picture.2 The most interesting discovery may be that the Greeks had already faced this question of meta-historical identity in relation to the victim. I have chosen Euripides' lost tragedy,the Cretans, to illustrate this: its highly original subject within the corpus of Greek tragedy and its symbolic richness fully justify its choice. The few remaining fragments, which are almost entirely reproduced here, provide enough material for analyses that are necessarily more limited but more complete in themselves and thus more suitable for a single essay. Besides, they possess high literary quality and do not deserve to remain the sole preserve of specialists. The tragedy of the labyrinth Euripides probably wrote the Cretans before 430 B.C. The premisses of the plot are supplied by traditional mythical material. To demonstrate to his brothers that he has a divine right to the kingdom of Crete, Minos asks Poseidon to send a white bull from the sea for sacrifice. The god satisfies his request and Minos's power is confirmed, but he decided the bull is too beautiful to sacrifice. The wrath of the god is not slow to strike the king's family. Minos's wife, Pasiphae, falls in love with the bull and copulates with it. From this bestial union comes the Minotaur, the being, half-man half-bull, which is shut up in the labyrinth. Minos's nonperformance of the sacrifice therefore causes a grave crisis on the island, 1It could be said that the exciting comparison with Classical civilization is one of the inspiring forces of Violence and the Sacred. An analogous direction, as regards Virgil and sacrifice, is followed by Bandera in The Sacred Game (13IfI). See also note 1 1. 2G. Fornari, The Esoteric Knowledge of the Greeks: From Orphism to Tragedy, A SacrificialReading (forthcoming). Labyrinthine Strategies ofSacrifice165 jeopardizing the boundaries between man and animal. The monstrousness ofthe Minotaur represents the breaking-down ofthose differences that... (shrink)

This article reconstructs and interprets the evolution of the Minoan myth’s reception in literature, fine arts, and urban development during the twentieth century. The author’s understanding of this evolution is based on three assumptions: a) myth is a polysemantic symbol of metaphysical and historical origins and function; b) myth reflects the relationship of the cognitive vs. creative mechanisms of human activity; and c) as symbolic, myth’s form must be treated as an image as much as it is a narrative. As (...) a motif in literature and the arts, the Minoan myth in particular has displayed all three of these aspects by allowing first its heroic narrative and, more recently, its formal structure and visual setting to serve as porte-paroles of ongoing social and civilisational transformations: aestheticisation, deconstruction of cognitive and political hierarchies, technicisation, and intensive urbanisation. The displacement of the narrative and of the figure of the Minotaur is interpreted from the perspectives of psychoanalysis and post-structuralism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Phaedra's Labyrinth as the Paradigm of Passion: Racine's Aesthetic Formulation of Mimetic Desire Jacques-Jude Lépine Haverford College The actual model of Racine's Phaedra is no more the one that he claims to follow in his preface than one ofthose which his critics have sought in vain to find in the works of his immediate predecessors.1 Indeed, the comparative reading ofRacine's last profane tragedy against his sources shows that Seneca (...) and Euripides only provided a very general framework, one might say a traditional theme, which Racine completely recasts on the level of the plot, structure, characters, poetic esthetics, and theatrical performance. On the other hand, the myth of Phaedra's involuntary passion for her stepson Hippolytus, the hunter who was supposed to be atavistically insensitive to erotic seduction, could very well have been reorganized on the basis of another mythological episode which precedes it, the killing of the Minotaur by Theseus in the Labyrinth. There are many explicit references to this episode throughout Racine's Phaedra. There are even more than a rich but strictly thematic critic has been able to detect (see Racine), underscoring the fundamental point of my essay that the intensely poetic character of the Labyrinth, and particularly its function as a fantastic spatial frame, is not simply of a decorative nature. In Racine's work, as in any other genuine literary masterpiece, there is a unity ofcontent and form. The many references to the Labyrinth are determinant for the very subject ofPhaedra, which is the representation of passion, the only subject of interest for Racine. In fact, I intend to demonstrate that Racine used the unique topography of the Labyrinth as a paradigm of the logic of the relationships between his ' These works are Garnier's "Hippolyte" (1573) and Quinault's "Bellérophon" (1671). 48Jacques-Jude Lépine characters because of its capacity for fully expressing the mimetic origin of passion, a decisive discovery the gradual stages towards which may be traced in all his previous works. The Monster Hunt as a Metaphor of the Dramatic Action In order to demonstrate this point, I will start from the textual data, even though it will be necessary to go beyond a simple inventory of the themes explicitly connected to the Labyrinth. The first of these themes is obviously the one of monstrosity. At some point in the play, all the main characters accuse themselves, or are accused, of being a monster (Barthes 115). The relationship between this moral monstrosity (expressed in ambiguous statements suggesting a physical sign) and the return of Theseus, whose numerous monster hunts Hippolytus recalls in the opening scene,2 is easy to see. As has been already noted, the theme of the monster hunt is present from beginning to end of the play, where the fight between Hippolytus and the sea monster occurs (see Jasenas). But the monsterpar excellence is the Minotaur, whose death at the hands of Theseus Phaedra recalls in a famous speech which serves to reveal her passion to Hippolytus through a series of substitutions in the original cast of characters: Oh, why were you too young top have embarked Within the ship that brought him [Theseus] to our shores? You would have been the monster's killer then, In spite of all the windings of his maze. To find your way in that uncertain dark, My sister would have armed you with the thread. But no! In this design I would have been Ahead of her, my sister! Me, not her, It would have been whom love at first inspired; And I it would have been, Prince, I, whose aid Had taught you all the Labyrinth's crooked ways. A single thread would not have been enough To satisfy your lover's fears for you. I would myself have wished to lead the way, And share the perils you were bound to face. Phaedra, into the Labyrinth, with you Would have descended, and with you returned, To safety, or with you have perished. (647-62) 2 See verses 73-90. References to Margaret Rawlings's translation of Phaedra will be given parenthetically in the text. The verse numbers refer to the French edition... (shrink)

I came to the subject by attempting to reinterpret the well-known legend of the labyrinth and the status of its main characters: Theseus, Ariadne, Dedalus and the Minotaur. The conflict between the two invincible entities is a reminiscence, degraded by literaturisation of the first conflict - in the 'zero moment' of the mythical history of the Universe - between the principle of the Cosmos and the principle of the Chaos. From a hermeneutical perspective, the god's overcoming of the monster (...) is an act of ordering the Chaos, and thus of cosmogenesis. The ordered Chaos becomes Cosmos. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Formal Technique and Epithalamial Setting in the Song of the Parcae (Catullus 64.305–22, 328–36, 372–80)Marcos Ruiz SánchezThe present study aims to analyze the technique of verbal reminiscences and the structure of the frame of the song of the Parcae, one of the most important sections in poem 64 and the most controversial in meaning, together with the implications these verbal echoes have for the meaning of the text.Catullus’ poem (...) 64 was undoubtedly conceived by the author himself as his masterpiece and it appears as such in the very centre of the collection. We know from poem 95 that Cinna, Catullus’ poet friend and companion on his journey to the East, took nine years to write a similar poem, the epyllion entitled Zmyrna. Cinna’s work was famous for its obscurity, but also poem 35 mentions the time spent by another poet from Catullus’ circle of friends in writing a poem on the Magna Mater. Both references reveal the meticulousness (the labor limae) with which the neoteric poets composed their most important works.This explains the reason for the compositional virtuosity that can frequently be discovered in poem 64. An example of this is the repeated use of verbal reminiscences throughout the poem. 1 For the author this procedure serves various purposes: to provide a frame for the descriptive sections or direct speech; to link the different events by underlining the causal relations between them; to confer a symbolic nature on the text, and so forth. Before we turn to the introduction of the Parcae and their song, which is the main focus of this paper, it will be useful to illustrate Catullus’ technique of simultaneous ring composition and forward [End Page 75] cross-reference through verbal echoes from verses 112–15. This one case and its allusive network may serve as an example, among many, of this compositional virtuosity of Catullus. When he describes the hero Theseus emerging from the labyrinth after slaying the Minotaur, he does so in the following terms:inde pedem sospes multa cum laude reflexit errabunda regens tenui vestigia filo, ne labyrintheis e flexibus egredientem tecti frustraretur inobservabilis error.(64.112–15)These verses are an echo, after the elaborated Homeric simile used by the author to refer to the death of the monster, of those in which Catullus previously described the fears of Ariadne enamoured by Theseus’ fortune:cum saevum cupiens contra contendere monstrum aut mortem appeteret Theseus aut praemia laudis! non ingrata tamen frustra munuscula divis promittens tacito succepit vota labello.2 (64.101–4)In both cases the narration centres on the favours granted Theseus by Ariadne: in the first with the supplications she directs to the gods; in the second with the gift of the ball of thread which enables the hero to escape from the labyrinth.It is not difficult to discover a closer relation between the two passages. In the first, Theseus wishes to fight the monster: cum saevum cupiens contra contendere monstrum /... Theseus. The expectation thus raised with regard to possible narratives is answered in verse 110, which evokes the previous verse: sic domito saevum postravit corpore Theseus.The hero wishes for death or glory: 3 aut mortem appeteret Theseus [End Page 76] aut praemia laudis This verse is taken up later in the following passage: inde pedem sospes multa cum laude reflexit (64.112). If Theseus wished for death or the reward of glory, Ariadne’s help enabled him to avoid one and achieve the other. The reappearance of the term frustra (102) in the verb frustraretur (115) stresses the heroine’s intervention. 4In verses 112–15 we find, moreover, the stylistic recourse of etymologically related words that had been used by the poet in the previous simile (indomitus turbo, 107; exturbata, 108; domito, 110). Reflexit (112) and errabunda vestigia (113) are echoed again in labyrintheis flexibus (114) and inobservabilis error (115), such that the verses are ordered as follows: A (112), B (113), A′ (114), B′ (115).The repetitions stress the difficulty in returning and the importance of Ariadne’s help. Theseus’ life depends on the tenuous thread that governs his steps. Reflexit and flexibus emphasize the tortuousness... (shrink)

Did the Greeks believe in their mythology? The answer is difficult, for “believe” means so many things… Not everyone believed that Minos continued to be a judge in Hell or that Theseus defeated the Minotaur, and they knew that poets “lie.” Nevertheless, their manner of not believing gave reason for concern, for Theseus was no less real in their eyes. It is simply necessary to “purify myth with reason’“ and to reduce the biography of the companion of Hercules to (...) its historic kernel. As for Minos, after a prodigious mental effort, Thucydides extracts the same kernel from his subject: “Of all those whom we know only by hearsay, Minos was the first to have a fleet.” The father of Phaedra, the husband of Pasiphaë is nothing more than a king who was master of the sea. The purification of the mythical by the logos is not an episode in the eternal struggle, from the beginning to Voltaire and Renan, between superstition and reason, a struggle which was the glory of Greek genius. The myth and the logos, despite Nestle, are not simple opposites like truth and error. Myth was a subject of serious reflections, and the Greeks had not yet finished with it six centuries after the Sophist movement which has been called their Aufklärung. Far from being a triumph of reason, the purging of myth by logos is a very dated program whose absurdity is surprising. Why did the Greeks make themselves unhappy for nothing by seeking to separate the wheat from the chaff instead of rejecting in one gesture the fantasy of both Theseus and the Minotaur, the very existence of a fabulous Minos as well as the implausible qualities with which the myth endows this Minos? (shrink)

We can say that Picasso’s images speak to us, and, as writing, speak to us from that space in which any text – far from being reduced to a single sense – “disseminates” its “truths”. Using the figure and the story of the Minotaur, Picasso devoted himself to one of the great themes of his pictorial work. The word “labyrinth” connotes, to the European mind, Greece, Knossos, Dedalus, Ariadne and the Minotaur. However, the Greek formula already represents a (...) mythic and poetic outcome thoroughly developed from an imagery forged in the remotest eras of our evolution. The relationship between the image, the spiral, and the word, labyrinth is also linked to the perception of a drilled earth, excavated, with numberless tortuous tunnels which, in our imagination, provoke concern because they lead to the world of the inferi, the unknown depths of the realms of the dead. Juan Larrea, a little-known essayist in the sphere of philosophical studies, although, from the outset of international renown for Picasso’s work, he gives what is perhaps the best interpretation of Guernica and consequently also sheds much light on the engravings immediately preceding the execution of this painting, the Minotauromachy among them. The artist is not a prophet. He is not foreseeing what the future holds for humanity, but he does possess a heightened sensitivity that drives him to minutely scrutinise the conditions of the time that he has had to live, and he has a transforming eye for the symbols that constitute the deepest threads in the fabric of his culture. (shrink)

One of the major contributions in the social science of the post-Vietnam era has been the initiation of a new discourse on the psychology of gender. If one were pressed to identify the prototypical statement of this fresh field, the most justifiable candidate would be Dorothy Dinnerstein's book, The Mermaid and the Minotaur. Dinnerstein's thesis is that mother-monopolised child-rearing deforms both male and female psychological development, engendering semi-monstrous mythical figures bound together symbiotically rather than complementary human beings in creative, (...) loving relation. The social confounding of child-rearing with mothering implies a process of development that confronts boys with an abrupt disidentification. For girls, on the other hand, it is the continuity of identification that presents problems. This article presents an interview with Dinnerstein on the relationship between gender development and war. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Marie-Andrée Charbonneau a fait ses études de médecine et de philosophie et c’est tant mieux. Ces deux disciplines lui ont permis de s’intéresser aux premiers travaux scientifiques de Jacques Lacan puis aux textes ultérieurs où les références philosophiques sont omniprésentes. En fait, Charbonneau s’intéresse tout particulièrement à la pensée du premier Lacan qui va de 1926 à 1953 et qu’elle divise en trois périodes. La première, de 1926 à 1932, couvre les premières publications médicales de l’auteur de même que sa (...) thèse de doctorat. La deuxième débute en 1933 avec les textes publiés dans Le Minotaure et se termine par celui de 1938 sur la famille. La guerre sépare la deuxième et la troisième période, laquelle prend fin avec le tournant de 1953. C’est une démarche essentiellement chronologique que nous offre Charbonneau dans son livre, reprenant dans les détails, les textes publiés durant ces trois périodes. Pour l’auteure, Lacan apparaît comme un homme bien de son temps et dont l’œuvre reflète à merveille le milieu intellectuel dans lequel elle s’inscrit. Et c’est à travers ces multiples influences que Lacan tentera d’établir le statut de cette nouvelle science qu’est la psychanalyse. (shrink)

This essay offers an interpretation of Plato’s Phaedo, which proceeds in two parts: (1) methodological interpretation of myth and (2) application of the method to the analysis of the soul. The paper claims that the myths in this dialogue are not limited to the explicitly mythical sections but that the entirety of the Phaedo—including the arguments that it presents—is saturated with myth. Through this interpretive lens, the soul, as it appears in the Phaedo, ceases to be characterized as a mere (...) thing and gains an ontological dimension. (shrink)