The Figure of the Minotaur in Jacques Chessex`s writings and

The Figure of the Minotaur in Jacques Chessex‟s writings and paintings
Abstract:
Placing itself in a critical time and space, the myth tells a sacred story,
taken to the origins by means of oral tradition. The ultimate purpose of the myth
is to illuminate seemingly inexplicable phenomena, in order to shape the world
through stories and symbolic imagery. The Minotaur is a figure charged with
multiple symbolic meanings, and varies according to culture and the personal
visions of every artist. In the works of Jacques Chessex, one of the writers and
painters of the contemporary western Switzerland, the Minotaur‟s myth is
transposed at the level of his works as a theme referring to the sacred, the wild,
and the archaic. Strongly influenced by Picasso‟s work, Chessex built around
this mythical figure a world embedded with erotic connotations, steeped in
harsh tones or words with aggressive overtones. It is a reinterpretation of the
old myth that goes up to the more intimate identification with the Minotaur until it
reaches metamorphosis: “Je te mange, tu deviens moi, je suis toi de t’avoir en
moi” (Chessex 2001: 212). For Chessex, the Minotaur resembles the wilderness
of man, a symbol of his indomitable instinctual forces, the nucleus around which
stands the inner structure of a self-destructive personality which takes it to its
depths.
Key-words: Jacques Chessex, Suiss Romande literature, Myth, The Minotaur,
Art
Any attempt to define the term “myth” faces the problem of the diversity
of meanings that result from it. According to a definition provided by Le
Dictionnaire du Littéraire the word “myth” comes from the Greek “mythos” which
means “story”, “fable” or even “word” (Aron, Saint-Jacques, Viala 2002: 387).
Therefore, in its basic understanding, a myth is a fabulous story that tells itself.
The same dictionary emphasizes the allegorical aspect of the myths that tries to
explain the inexplicable. Due to the fact that myths refer to a state of the world
prior to the present state, they can be considered as stories about origins.
The multiple meanings of the different visions of theoreticians of this
concept revolve around the dual function of myth, which is to bring together and
1
to contrast the real and the imaginary, in order to detect the most intimate
relationships that develop between these two dimensions, essential to human
existence. The basic meaning of myth reveals that it tells stories by means of a
symbolic language. Moreover, as primary sources for the stories about gods
and mankind, myths provide a set of representations of the relationships of the
world and mankind with invisible beings: “représentations des rapports du
monde et de l’humanité avec les êtres invisibles” (Lévy-Bruhl 1976: 420).
According to Pierre Brunel, myth has three functions: to tell, to explain,
and to reveal. It recounts, being driven by a dynamism which is characteristic to
every story, explains the causes, based on a question-answer system, and
reveals the human being and the god. (Brunel 1988: 8-9).
Claude Levi-Strauss says that myth is a story time where men and
animals were not yet distinct “une histoire du temps où les hommes et les
animaux n’étaient pas encore distincts” (Levi-Strauss 1993: 133) However,
since those days until now, attempts to define myth and the various means
used in it conducted to research which, although very large, is hardly
exhaustive. The importance of the problem of myth still remains the same.
In the attempt to list some of the approaches of the major theorists to the
concept of myth, we cannot overlook Nietzsche‟s view on myth, who considers
it to be a tale of rivalry between Apollonian and Dionysian forces; or that of LeviStrauss, who believes that myth is just a “tool of logic” which has as its main
function to reconcile diachronically semantic entities that do not overlap from a
synchronic point of view, in order to achieve an impossible association.
Gilbert Durand goes even further, identifying the location in which the
myth is narrated, as a final speech, charged with a fundamental antagonistic
tension within any meaningful development. It transposes the opposition
pointed out by Levi-Strauss at the level of classification of images. Daytime may
be associated with darkness by means of an intermediate sequence, endowed
with “diachronic or disseminative structures”. It is precisely at the level of these
structures that the narration of myth takes place.
René Girard believes that there is some violence that lurks behind the
visible since the foundation of the world. In his vision, there is a fundamental
opposition between a primordial myth and a myth that is said to be personal, an
opposition which mainly reflects the novelty of the meanings given by the
2
subjective and intimate reinterpretation of a primordial myth. When these new
meanings are able to drastically change the original meaning of myth, we are
dealing with the birth of a literary myth. When working in the recreation of an
ancient myth, there is an enrichment which is elaborated on the different levels
of myth (thematic, linguistic or stylistic etc.), a change that occurs in a conscious
or unconscious manner and takes the form of a personal myth.
Charles Mauron also speaks of the existence of a personal myth which
provides, according to him, an image of the unconscious “inner world” of the
author, with its bodies and its internal objects. Thus, this is the way in which the
original meaning of the term “myth” is transposed, namely the one of sacred
narrative, going towards literature and towards a personal reinterpretation of
this ancient concept. Literary myth is in fact an extension of the myth that arose
during the times of ancient Greece. Changes in direction that have occurred
demonstrate the richness of interpretation of this notion, and especially the
contribution of peoples and individuals who have done their own use of it.
While for Plato myth is only a kind of illusion or fantasy that corrupts the
mind and which places itself beyond any control of reason, for the neo-Platonic
thinkers, myth is a way of knowledge, even if it is indirect. In fact, myth lies in
the manner in which it chooses to represent a certain meaning, and in the way
in which it sends a message through the symbols carrying the true meaning of
myth. From Plato to the present day, various interpretive methods of myth have
been set forth to justify its existence in some way, to identify the causes and
effects that represent the major pieces of a constantly renewed system.
Psychoanalytic criticism links the mythical productions to biographical
elements about an author and social phenomena. Structuralists believe that
these products are explained in the more or less formal game of the structures
of a text. Myth criticism turns out to be a synthesis of different literary, artistic or
sociological approaches, intending to show that myth is a symbolic entity that
has as its central function the coordination and the creation of a comprehensive
set within different mythic narratives. Myth criticism also tries to highlight the
existence of redundant and obsessive themes, to examine the situations, the
contexts or the settings in which they occur, to analyze the characters and also
the setting, and to deal with different lessons given by myth, by comparing them
to myths of other times and other clearly defined cultural spaces.
3
This is the path that we commit to by means of this study. Having set our
basis on the ancient myth of the Minotaur and the meanings derived from it, we
would like to highlight the reinterpretation of this myth that, despite its age, falls
into the contemporary, a reinterpretation identified in the work of the Swiss
Romand writer and painter, Jacques Chessex.
A return to the origins of the myth of the Minotaur situates it in Crete,
during the 3rd-2nd century BC. The writers of ancient Greece who speak for the
first time about it are Hyginus1, Plutarch2, and Apollodorus3. The story is known.
Minos, the son of Europe and Zeus, reigns over Crete. It offers each year a bull
in sacrifice to Poseidon, on which depends the prosperity of the island. Finding
no animal worthy of oblation, he asks the god of the sea to give him an animal
for sacrifice. At this request, Poseidon sends out of the waves a magnificent
white bull, that Minos finds so nice that he decides to deceive the god of the
sea: he saves the creature and sacrifices another beast.
Angered by the attitude of Minos, Poseidon takes his revenge by
becoming incarnate in the animal and by seducing the wife of the king of Crete,
Pasiphae. As a result of this union, the Minotaur is born, a bull-headed creature
with a human body. Minos, ashamed and afraid that the people will discover this
monster, asks Daedalus to build a labyrinth in which the creature is confined. At
the same time, Androgeus, a son of Minos, is killed by a bull in Athens. After his
death, Minos besieges Athens and requires them, among other things, as a
tribute, to send seven boys and seven girls each year, as an offering to the
Minotaur. One year, one of seven boys is Theseus, the son of Aegeus, king of
Athens. On the advice of one of Minos‟ daughter, Ariane, who is in love with
him, Theseus manages to kill the monster by following a wool thread which
guides him towards the exit. To punish Daedalus, Minos locks him up with his
son, Icarus, in the labyrinth. Daedalus builds some wings and escapes with
Icarus, who perishes because he flies too high and thus his wings are melted in
the sun.
It is from this version of the myth that many writers and painters will tell
the story of the terrifying creature, both man and bull, while showing different
1
http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/Chronologia/Lspost02/Hyginus/hyg_fcap.html site visited on
October 24th, 2010.
2
http://remacle.org/bloodwolf/historiens/Plutarque/index.htm site visited on October 24th, 2010.
3
http://remacle.org/bloodwolf/erudits/apollodorebiblio/table.htm site visited on October 24th, 2010.
4
views compared to the original one, emphasizing the monstrosity of the animal,
the courage of Theseus or the sacrifice of Aegeus:
Tout le mythe de Thésée raconte un voyage vers la mort, un
sacrifice, une renaissance et une initiation. Dédale en est l’initiateur,
le Minotaure le bourreau, Ariane la récompense, Thésée l’initié, qui
peut même se payer le luxe, bien plus tard, de descendre en Enfer et
d’en revenir sain et sauf. (Attali 1996 : 71-72)
Jacques Attali's fault is the exile, a condition in which wandering is
initiatory and the reward can be found only towards the end of the trail. While
Minos is cursed after breaking the rule, Theseus proves to be a hero, defeating
a terrible danger, Daedalus is the scientist who changes human life, and Ariane
is the reward of the hero. This myth embeds many primordial archetypes of
man. In Georges Bataille‟s view, the myth of the Minotaur reveals the reunion
with savagery, sex, transgression and sacrifice. Therefore, there is a deep bond
between man and animal which enforces the fact that the sacred can only be
found after the release of savagery:
Il y a […] dans chaque homme, un animal enfermé dans une prison,
comme un forçat, et il y a une porte, et si on entrouvre la porte,
l’animal se rue dehors comme le forçat trouvant l’issue ; alors,
provisoirement, l’homme tombe mort et la bête se conduit comme
une bête, sans aucun souci de provoquer l’admiration poétique du
mort. (Bataille 1929: 208-209)
André Peyronie promotes the idea that the monster has been confined to
solitude even since its birth, an everlasting waiting which will eventually end in
death:
Le Minotaure est un monstre dont la monstruosité résulte de la
manière dont il a été engendré. Sa préhistoire est, de ce point de
vue, aussi importante que son histoire. Sa vie est d’ailleurs très
pauvre d’aventures. Enfermé dans le labyrinthe, c’est tout juste si le
tribut athénien vient, de temps à autre, le distraire et le nourrit. Son
histoire est co-extensive à celle du labyrinthe, construit pour lui, voué
à disparaître avec lui, et dans lequel il attend. Il attend, sans le
savoir, que Thésée vienne le tuer. C’est le seul événement de sa vie.
(Peyronie 1988 : 1053-1054).
5
Jorge Luis Borges portrays in his short story La Casa de Asterion (El
Aleph, 1949) a Minotaur that speaks as a prisoner tired of a life which offers him
nothing, and which determines his wish for a salvation with redemptive values:
Cada nueve años entran en la casa nueve hombres para que yo los
libere de todo mal. Oigo sus pasos o su voz en el fondo de las
galerías de piedra y corro alegremente a buscarlos. La ceremonia
dura pocos minutos. Uno tras otro caen sin que yo me ensangriente
las manos. Donde cayeron, quedan, y los cadáveres ayudan a
distinguir una galería de las otras. Ignoro quiénes son, pero sé que
uno de ellos profetizó, en la hora de su muerte, que alguna vez
llagaría mi redentor. Desde entonces no me duele la soledad, porque
sé que vive mi redentor y al fin se levantará sobre el polvo. Si mío
oído alcanza todos los rumores del mundo, yo percibiría sus pasos.
Ojala me lleve a un lugar con menos galerías y menos puertas.
¿Como será mi redentor?, me pregunto. ¿Será un toro o un hombre?
¿Será tal vez un toro con cara de hombre? ¿O será como yo? 4
Beginning in 1933, with the publication of the journal Minotaure, led by
Albert Skira, the mythical figure of this monster is associated with modernity and
surrealism. Painters like Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, Henri Matisse, Marcel
Duchamp, Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso contribute with representations of the
Minotaur on the covers (See Annexes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6)5. Picasso is also
known for the deep connection he establishes through his paintings between
the myth of the Minotaur and the bullfight.
André Peyronie‟s work traces the steps in the symbolic evolution of the
myth of the Minotaur through centuries and literary movements: “Littérairement,
le Minotaure connaît donc deux grandes phases ; l’une d’incarnation de
l’horreur, l’autre de monstruosité problématique.” (Peyronie 1988: 1059)
However, even if the early Greco-Roman Antiquity does not mark the Minotaur
as a literary myth, the late nineteenth century presents the mythical creature as
a figure around which deeper meanings revolve:
Le monstre hideux se découvre, à travers sa liaison au désir,
beaucoup moins laid qu’on l’avait cru et bientôt la définition même de
la beauté moderne passe par lui. […] on ne détruit pas une image et
l’on ne tue jamais le Minotaure. Tout au plus le sacrifie-t-on, c’est-à4
5
http://www.literatura.us/borges/lacasa.html site visited on October 24th, 2010.
http://thenonist.com/index.php/thenonist/permalink/minotaure/ site visited on October 24th, 2010.
6
dire qu’on le transforme, ou encore qu’il nous accomplit. (Peyronie
1988: 1060)
Furthermore, the work of the Swiss Romand writer and painter Jacques
Chessex finds its way through this cultural path, which highlights the link
between the figure of the Minotaur and a brand new beauty, distinct from the
ancient concept of beauty, connected to eroticism and desire, but also to a
process that seeks self-knowledge and the deepest insight.
If we were to locate Jacques Chessex in the field of French literature, his
membership in the Swiss Romand literature must be mentioned. His almost
Baroque style is crowned by a series of complex features: the location of his
works at the confluence of literary genres, the permanent oscillation between
narrative and poetic styles, its intention to transgress reality in order to place
himself in a mysterious setting, his fascination for the feminine element, and his
desperate desire to forget about the haunting memory of his father‟s suicide.
Jacques Chessex„s literary world is forging/creating a new ideology in
relation to past trends. He states: “Je crois, sans me rattacher à aucun
mouvement, que je n’en rejette aucun non plus. Je puise dans chacun d’eux ce
qui m’y intéresse ou me correspond le mieux. […] C’est le style qui compte,
c’est le style qui est le monde, c’est le style qui donne au monde réel sa vraie
signification.” (Bridel 2002: 171-172)
This is probably due to his style that he won the Goncourt Award in 1973
for his novel The Ogre, and again the Goncourt Award for poetry in 2004. The
specificity of his work takes the form of a quest for revealing the inner self, but
also as a desire to discover how others perceive the self. His characters
struggle to build themselves a new identity or try to find their origins in order to
get rid of a suffocating past. Their particular feeling of uncertainty and the
unpredictable movements of their destiny converge in one point: the futility of
existence sometimes carried to extremes.
Much influenced by Picasso, his idol, Chessex‟s paintings try to convey
the secret nature of the man who is torn between the fascination for darkness
and the aspiration to the vividness of life. His paintings are placed midway
between atrocity and grace, darkness and light, libertinism and the severity of
7
the Calvinist faith, peace and remorse, all these witnessing for the personality of
their creator and his inner conflicts.
Nevertheless, with Jacques Chessex, the Minotaur acquires new
symbolic values. In one of his autobiographical novels, entitled Monsieur, the
writer illustrates the close correspondence between him and the figure of the
Minotaur, an intimate relationship that extends to the identification of one with
the other:
C’est une très vieille histoire entre lui et moi, s’il est vrai que notre
esprit récupère et fait sienne toute l’histoire des mythes en les
actualisant dans ses moindres mouvements et manifestations. Mon
corps les incarne et les produit dans ses gestes secrets et montrés.
J’ai trois mille ans de plus que mon âge. Je suis ici et à Cnossos
chez le Minotaure. Ce n’est pas ma tête qui assimile ces trente
siècles. C’est ma fibre. Ce sont mes os. (Chessex 2001: 209)
Should we consider it identification with the mythical figure of the
monster, or rather the reincarnation of the monster in the intimate structure of
the writer? That is an ambivalence that is moving towards an assessment on
the duality of the human being. It is between these two spiritual dimensions that
the individuality of Jacques Chessex is configured. It is not only important to
unveil the dark side of human personality and its most impure thoughts reflected
in the mythical figure of the Minotaur, but also to admit that there is something
of the Minotaur that still resides in the depths of every human being, like a
smouldering fire that can revive at any moment.
It results that there is savagery and brutality in the depths of every
human consciousness, greed and desire to devour and destroy the weak.
Chessex goes deeper into the associations he makes between himself and the
Minotaur and establishes an intimate connection between the monster and the
cruelty of man, while tracing the similarities between the instinct to dominate, to
conquer and to kill the beast, and the erotic instinct of human beings:
Je pensais à toi, Minotaure, chaque fois que j’ouvrais une bouche
pour y appuyer mes dents, ma langue, et manger le souffle d’une
mortelle dont l’agonie me pâmait. Je te retrouvais, Minotaure, dans le
halètement de forge de tant de poitrines en feu, sur tant de ventres
lisses ou je glissais en songeant à ton mufle répandant sa salive sur
les seins et les hanches de tant de jeunes corps ravis. Je te louais,
8
Minotaure, en plongeant ma bouche entre les lèvres de tant de
jeunes sexes gorgés de très impatient suc. (Chessex 2001 : 210211)
Chessex preserves from the old symbolism of the Minotaur only its origin:
a hideous creature trapped in a maze from which one cannot escape and where
one does not dare to venture. In his vision, the Minotaur is a creature worthy of
all admiration because he is an illustration of power beyond mortals‟
understanding – the sort of power which fascinates and attracts them
indiscriminately. While Picasso constructed his myth rather renewed around the
figure of the bull instead around that of the Minotaur, Chessex established a
clear boundary between these two figures that once belonged to the same
myth: “Et s’il faut choisir entre deux monstres je préfère le goût du Minotaure à
la force brute du taureau.” (Chessex 2001: 210)
It is not brutality and rapacity which encourages the writer. On the
contrary, there are more aspects of Minotaur‟s nature which he deals with, such
as: hunger, desire to eat, necessity and permanence of instinctive forces. In
fact, the Minotaur's appetite arouses the interest of the writer, a point in which
he finds a match. While admitting in an interview for the magazine Artpassions
that his Carnets du Minotaure are much influenced by Picasso‟s works of art,
Jacques Chessex reveals that for him the Minotaur represents both a force of
life and a threat of death: “Le Minotaure est aussi à la fois une force de vie et
une menace de mort. C’est Eros et Thanatos réunis dans le même mythe, c’est
l’amour qui ne peut s’accomplir que dans la mort.” (Kopp 2009: 19)
Robert Kopp also notes that Chessex literary works and paintings6 are
torn between two simultaneous inclinations Baudelaire was talking about
previously, one to the spirituality, and the other towards the savagery. It is
because of this dualism that the human being, a character of Chessex‟s literary
texts or paintings, appears as torn, permanently adrift, living a life he/she can
neither understand nor accept.
While trying to explain his attachment to this mythical figure, Chessex
speaks of the association of the Minotaur and the bull he calls his “double
Ground” / “son double terrien” to the notion of Beast. Consequently, the term
6
See annexes 7, 8, 9, pictures taken from http://www.sandrine-fontaine.ch/index.php/artistes/jacqueschessex/galerie site visited on October 24th 2010
9
“beast” does not refer to a true savagery and it does not always have negative
connotations. According to him, this word has deeper meanings:
…la Bête, qui colore les têtes que je vois, et mes envies, mes
paysages, qui donne du goût aux repas que je mange, qui augmente
les odeurs que je sens, qui porte et corse, ou appesantit, ou rend
fétide, ou adorable, l’air que je respire en tout lieu. Et lieux du corps.
Une parenté nous lie au bord de quelques gouffres, une attirance
saturnienne de l’abîme de l’autre, de sa caverne secrète, et de sa
dévoration. (Chessex 2001: 212)
It's a return to primordial origins that bound man to the beast and which
did not involve a negative side. On the contrary, it refers to the time when man
tried to explore the unknown, the age when he believed in gods and in the
forces of nature. Chessex speaks of a Saturnian attraction to secret areas of the
other, a force to which we cannot oppose, leading to introspection.
Furthermore, this is a process of self-knowledge and a manner of
identification and acceptance of one‟s innermost layers that Chessex begins
while identifying with the figure of the Minotaur. By asserting that there is a
double metamorphosis, the Minotaur becomes man and man becomes the
Minotaur, Chessex admits that he is a dual human being, as was formerly the
Minotaur, half man, half bull. Unlike the Minotaur of the Greek Antiquity,
Chessex enjoys the ambiguity of his nature, which relies on the fact that he is
not troubled by his dual identity. While addressing his mother in the last lines of
the chapter Minotaure, the Swiss Romand writer says: “…mère, tu le sais, je me
perds et je me retrouve au labyrinthe dont je suis aussi le gardien. Minotaure du
Minotaure, en miroir du portrait jamais fini qui se constitue sous son mufle.”
(Chessex 2001: 213)
One gets lost and finds oneself in the labyrinth of which one is also
guard. One lives in a perpetual abyss, while exploring the depths of one‟s
innermost structure, continuously building and renewing it. This is the
philosophy which is reflected by the reinterpretation of the ancient myth of the
Minotaur given by the Swiss Romand author Jacques Chessex. While exploring
his instincts, his taste for devouring, the writer is led to conclude that his portrait
as a dual human being, situated between savagery and humanity, will never be
finished and that it develops every day differently, with each book. Every myth
10
leads to another myth, because human existence is itself a myth. And there is in
all of us a Minotaur who is hungry and eager of his victims, a victim himself of
his destiny.
Notes
1. Chessex, Jacques, Monsieur, Grasset, Paris, 2001, p. 212
2. Aron, Paul ; Saint-Jacques, Denis ; Viala, Alain, (sous la direction), Le
Dictionnaire du Littéraire, PUF, Paris, 2002, p. 387
3. Levy-Bruhl, Lucien. La mentalité primitive, Retz, Paris, 1976, p. 420
4. Brunel, Pierre, (sous la direction), Dictionnaire des Mythes littéraires,
Editions du Rocher, Monaco, 1988, p. 8-9
5. Levi-Strauss, Claude, De près et de loin, entretien avec Didier Eribon,
Odile Jacob, 1993, p.133
6. Attali, Jacques, Chemins de sagesse, Fayard, Paris, 1996, p. 71-72
7. Bataille, Georges, Métamorphose in Documents n°6, novembre 1929,
OCI, Gallimard, Paris, 1970, pp. 208-209
8. Peyronie, André, Minotaure in Dictionnaire des Mythes littéraires, sous la
direction de Pierre Brunel, Editions du Rocher, Monaco, 1988, p. 10531054
9. Peyronie, André, Ibidem, p. 1059
10. Peyronie, Andre, Ibidem, p. 1060
11. Bridel, Geneviève, Jacques Chessex. Transcendance et transgression,
Bibliothèque des Arts, Lausanne, 2002, p. 171-172
12. Chessex, Jacques, Op. Cit. p. 209
13. Chessex, Jacques, Op. Cit. p. 210-211
14. Chessex, Jacques, Op. Cit. p. 210
15. Kopp, Robert, Jacques Chessex. Une voix dans la nuit in Artpassions no
18/ 2009, p. 19
16. Chessex, Jacques, Op. Cit. p. 212
17. Chessex, Jacques, Op. Cit. p. 213
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the European Social Fund in Romania, under
the responsibility of the Managing Authority for the Sectoral Operational
11
Programme
for
Human
Resources
Development
2007-2013
[grant
POSDRU/88/1.5/S/47646]
Bibliography
1. Apollodore,
http://remacle.org/bloodwolf/erudits/apollodorebiblio/table.htm site visited
on October 24th 2010
2. Aron, Paul ; Saint-Jacques, Denis ; Viala, Alain, (sous la direction), Le
Dictionnaire du Littéraire, PUF, Paris, 2002
3. Attali, Jacques, Chemins de sagesse, Fayard, Paris, 1996
4. Bataille, Georges, Métamorphose in Documents n°6, novembre 1929,
OCI, Gallimard, Paris, 1970
5. Borges, Jorge Luis, La Casa de Asterion (El Aleph 1949), online
document at http://www.literatura.us/borges/lacasa.html site visited on
October 24th 2010
6. Bridel, Geneviève, Jacques Chessex. Transcendance et transgression,
Bibliothèque des Arts, Lausanne, 2002
7. Brunel, Pierre, (sous la direction), Dictionnaire des Mythes littéraires,
Editions du Rocher, Monaco, 1988
8. Chessex, Jacques, Monsieur, Grasset, Paris, 2001
9. Chessex,
Jacques,
Peintures,
online
at
http://www.sandrine-
fontaine.ch/index.php/artistes/jacques-chessex/galerie site visited on
October 24th 2010
10. Durand, Gilbert, Les Structures anthropologiques de l'imaginaire, Paris,
P.U.F., 1960
11. Durand, Gilbert, Figures mythiques et visages de l’œuvre. De la
mythocritique à la mythanalyse, Paris, Berg International, 1979.
12. Girard, René, La violence et le sacré, Paris: Grasset, 1972
13. Hygin, online, site visited on October 24th 2010,
http://www.hsaugsburg.de/~harsch/Chronologia/Lspost02/Hyginus/hyg_fcap.html
14. Kopp, Robert, Jacques Chessex. Une voix dans la nuit in Artpassions no
18/ 2009
12
15. Lévi-Strauss, Claude, De près et de loin, interview by Didier Eribon,
Odile Jacob, 1988
16. Lévi-Strauss, Claude, Anthropologie structurale, Paris, Plon, 1958
17. Levy-Bruhl, Lucien. La mentalité primitive, Retz, Paris, 1976
18. Mauron, Charles, Des métaphores obsédantes au mythe personnel,
Introduction à la psychocritique, Editions José Corti, Paris, 1963
19. Nietzsche, Friedrich, La Naissance de la tragédie, Paris, Gallimard, 1989
20. Peyronie, André, Minotaure in Dictionnaire des Mythes littéraires, sous
la direction de Pierre Brunel, Editions du Rocher, Monaco, 1988
21. Plutarque, online document, site visited on October 24th 2010,
http://remacle.org/bloodwolf/erudits/apollodorebiblio/table.htm
22. Revue Minotaure (couvertures) online document
http://thenonist.com/index.php/thenonist/permalink/minotaure/ site visited
on October 24th 2010
13