Labyrinth
LABYRINTH. The word labyrinth refers to a large variety of drawings and patterns, some intricate, some less so, ranging from prehistoric rock engravings to modern art, as well as to highly complex symbolic and mythological structures around which an immense richness of meaning has accumulated during the course of many centuries and civilizations. The word is used to describe:
- a difficult path, or passage, or tunnel, often underground, through which it is extremely hazardous to find one's way without guidance
- a seemingly unending building of innumerable rooms and galleries intended to confound intruders and lead them astray
- metaphorically, any kind of complexity from which it is almost impossible to extricate oneself.
In this last and more general use, and under the pressure of the growing complexities of the contemporary world, the very old symbol of the labyrinth has come back with renewed vitality to haunt the subconscious of modern humankind and reenter the vocabulary of art and literature. What makes the labyrinth, in its wealth of analogical associations, so relevant today is the fact that it is an emblem of the existential dilemmas of modern urbanites, who find themselves trapped in a prisonlike world and condemned to wander aimlessly therein. However, the labyrinth catches the imagination not just because it reminds one that one is lost in its bowels and about to be devoured by the Minotaur but also because it suggests that somewhere in the dark pit there must be an almost forgotten center from which, after the ultimate trial confronting terror and death, one may find the way out to freedom.
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