Bahia Brazil The Minotaur : Canonical Translations of a Classical Monster (original) (raw)

Featured in numerous rereadings of Classical Antiquity, the mythical character known as the Minotaur represents, among other roles, a kind of synthesis of the attributes that shape a classical monster: he is a hybrid with an infamous conception, he is a ferocious anthropophagous and he is also foreign. Originated from Crete, an island in the Eastern Mediterranean, ruled by the feared King Minos, the Classical Minotaur is not only a monster by excellence, but also a “bogeyman” by excellence. His figure, often associated to the evil attributed to the monsters (beings presented as a deviation from the norm) and frequently depicted by literature and other arts, will be discussed here, starting from specific aspects: the arbitrary and changing conceptions of good and evil, majority and minority, as well as their respective conflicts. Since we intend to analyze the canonical figure of the Minotaur in verbal and visual rereadings, we add to our discussion the conceptions from descriptive s...