OLD MYTHS FOR “NEW” TIMES: THE MYTH OF THE MINOTAUR AS A VINDICATION OF THE OTHERNESS AND AS A SKEPTICAL MIRROR AGAINST THE GREAT STORIES

Abstract

The objective of this work is to show and analyze the variations that the myth of the Minotaur undergoes in the works of two writers familiar with the classical world, such as Julio Cortázar in Los Reyes and Jorge Luis Borges in his tale “La casa de Asterión”. In this study, we investigate the possible reasons that would encourage them to return to the classical tradition, especially the Greek one, and to update the myth of the Minotaur at the end of the 1940s in an intertextual rewriting. This is a typical trait of postmodernity that starts from different hypotexts; among them, Apollodorus’ Library, Pausanias’ Description of Greece, Euripides’ Hippolytus and Plutarch in his chapter about Theseus in Parallel Lives. For this, this work is based on the hypothesis that both writers looked and read with skepticism the mytheme in its different configurations, reinforcing the story with unpredictable and fantastic aspects, and fighting the faith in the Greek reason.