Thésée dans les méandres du XXe siècle : le réveil du Minotaure
Theseus in the twists and turns of the 20th century: the awakening of the Minotaur

Summary/Abstract: The artistic resurgence of the Minotaur in the 20th century reveals a profoundconnection between its myth and literature. Mythocriticism, particularly through the researchof André Siganos in his book The Minotaur and his Myth, highlights the contemporary returnto myth and animality, which expresses great nostalgia for a pre-semiotic world where thedistinction between human and animal had not yet been established – before the "definitiverupture" that is both the progress of man and the cause of his exile (1993a, IX). This mythalso serves as a hypotext that (post)modern and contemporary authors revisit in order to(re)write the palimpsest of a h/History that seems to embody the monstrous traits of theMinotaur, the human remains being devoured by the governing animality of the twentiethcentury. Our article aims to analyze the emergence, flexibility, and irradiation (Brunel 2016)of this mythical figure in Camille de Toledo’s novel Thésée, sa vie nouvelle (2020), in order tocontextualize the literary anchoring of the monster in this specific historical moment.

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