Writings
Vol. 36 No. 3 (2025)
Perversion and social innovation: the Minotaur, the labyrinth, Ariadne, Theseus, and Attica
Publisher's note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Published: 23 December 2025
317
Views
319
Downloads
Authors
Psychoanalysis has been interested in myths since its foundation, arousing both interest and criticism from scholars of historical and anthropological disciplines: on the one hand, in fact, the psychoanalytic model allows us to explain the creative processes that generated them and the attractiveness that they exercised on ancient populations, and on the other hand presents limits of congruence with the data that historical and literary research associates with them. This work proposes an integrated analytical approach, which associates historical and literary evidence with an analytic method that integrates the interpretation of symbols, specifically those of perversion, within the narrative structure, considering both elements significant. A decoding of the myth of the Labyrinth and the Minotaur will therefore be conducted, as it was used in that of Theseus, Ariadne and the foundation of Attica.
Downloads
Download data is not yet available.
Citations
Acerbo, S. (2017). Apollodorus Bibliotheca. The Literary Encyclopedia.
Adriani, M. (1859). (Trad.) Plutarco. Le vite parallele. Firenze: Le Monnier.
Anderson, G. (2003). The Athenian Experiment: Building an Imagined Community in Ancient Attica, 508-490 BC. The University of Michigan Press.
Apollodoro. (ca. III sec. a.C.). Biblioteca, libro III ed Epitome. Il crepuscolo degli Déi (C. Filagrossi, a cura di, 1999–2015).
Atsma, A. J. (2000-2011a). Ariadne. Disponibile da: https://www.theoi.com/Georgikos/Ariadne.html
Atsma, A. J. (2000-2011b). Dionysos. Disponibile da: https://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Dionysos.html
Atsma, A. J. (2000-2011c). Apollon. Disponibile da: https://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Apollon.html
Barriére, C. (1994). Redundancy: helping semantic disambiguation. Houghton Mifflin Company.
Barthes, R., & Dusuit, L. (1975). An introduction to the structural analysis of narrative. New Literary History, 6(2), 237–272.
Bunia, R. (2012). The agony of the signified: Toward a usage-based theory of meaning and society. In P. W. Stockhammer (Ed.), Conceptualizing cultural hybridization: A transdisciplinary approach.
Cerato, F. (2019). Pseudo-Apollodoro. Studia Humanitatis – παιδεία. Disponibile da: https://studiahumanitatispaideia.wordpress.com/2019/09/28/pseudo-apollodoro/
Clinton, K. (2007). The Mysteries of Demeter and Kore. In Ogden D (Ed.), A Companion to Greek Religion. Oxford: Blackwell publishing.
Dowden, K. (2005). The Uses of Greek Mythology (2ª ed.). Taylor & Francis e-Library.
Dowden, K., & Livingstone, L. (2011). Thinking through myth, thinking myth through. In K. Dowden & L. Livingstone (Eds.), A companion to Greek mythology. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Esiodo. (s.d.). Le Opere e i Giorni (Edizione Acrobat a cura di P. Sanasi).
Freeman, K. (s.d.). (Trad.) Apollodoro. Contra Naera. Disponibile da: http://www.stoa.org/diotima/anthology/wlgr/wlgr-greeklegal90.shtml
Graft, C. (2011). Myth in Cristian Authors. In: Dowden K & Livingstone L (Eds). A Companion to Greek Mythology. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell
Harrison, J. E. (1922). Prolegomena to the study of Greek religion. Cambridge University Press.
Hyldgaard, K. (2004). The Conformity of Perversion. The Symptom, (5).
Jones, E. (1948). The Theory of Symbolism. Papers on Psychoanalysis (5th ed.), 129-186. London: Baillèr, Tindoch and Cox.
Jones, J. (1999-2020). The Meaning of the Symbol of Labyrinth. Disponibile da: https://www.freudfile.org/psychoanalysis/symbol_labyrinth.html
Jung, C. G. (1921). Tipi Psicologici [Psychologische Typen] (Trad. it.: Musatti, C. e Aurigemma, L.). Torino: Boringhieri, 1988.
Kerény, K. (1971). Dioniso. Archetipo della vita indistruttibile [Dionysos. Urbid des unzerstorbaren Lebens] (Trad. it.: Del Corno, L.). Milano: Adelphi, 2011.
Lacan, J. (1957). Il Seminario Libro IV. La relazione oggettuale [Le Seminarie de Jaques Lacan. Livre IV. La relation d’object] (Trad. it.: Cavasola, R., e Menghi, C.; Rev.: Di Ciaccia, A.). Torino: Einaudi, 2007.
Larsson Lovén, L. (2010). Marriage in Ancient Greco-Roman Sources and Society. In Larsson Lovén L., Strömberg A. (eds): Ancient Marriage in Myth and Reality. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Linn, K. K. (2015). Athenian synoecism: Cults, myths, and the elite in sixth-century Attica (Master’s thesis, Universiteit Utrecht, Ancient Studies).
Longo, G. O. (2003). Informazione, ridondanza, ambiguità. Aperture, 14/15, 12-23.
Masud Khan, R. (1969). Role of the “Collated Internal Object” in Perversion-Formations. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 50, 555-565.
Matte Blanco, I. (1975). L’Inconscio come Insiemi Infiniti. Saggio sulla Bi-Logica [The Unconscious as Infinite Sets. An Essay on Bi-Logic] (Trad. it.: Bria, P.). Torino: Einaudi, 1981.
Merkur, D. (2005). Psychoanalytic Approaches to Myth. Freud and the Freudians. New York and London: Routledge.
Nagel, T. (1969). Sexual Perversion. The Journal of Philosophy, 66(1), 5-17.
Nunes, R. P., & de Souza, M. R. (2024). Products of the Unconsciuos or Sacred Account? The Myth in Freud and Eliade. Psicologia em Estudo, 29, 1-14.
Ogden, D. (2008). Perseus. Routledge
Ovidio. Eroidi – dialogo tra Deianira ed Ercole. Miti3000.it, 2000-2005.
Partenie, C. (2022). Plato’s Myths. In: Zalta EN (Ed): The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Pincherle, A., & Turchi, N. (1936). Sibilla. Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani.
Potamianou, A. (2016). The Tread in the Labyrinth.
Rabinowitz, N. S. (2011). Greek Tragedy: A Rape Culture? Varia.
Rothenberg, M. A., & Foster, D. (2003). Introduction. Beneath the skin: perversion and social analysis. In: Rothemberg MA Foster DA, Žižek S (Eds): Perversion and the social relation. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
Sanasi, P. (s.d., a) Eutidemo. Biblioteca, Ousia.it.
Sanasi, P. (s.d., b). Fedone. Biblioteca, Ousia.it.
Scarnera, P. (2016). The Myth as a Tool for Human Behaviour Setting. International Journal of Social Science Studies, 4(7).
Sels, N. (2011). Myth, Mind and Metaphor. On the Relation of Mythology and Psychoanalysis. Journal of the Jan Van Eyck Circle for Lacanian Ideology Critique, 4, 56-70.
Smith, A. C. (2005). The politics of weddings at Athens: an iconographic assessment. Leeds International Classical Studies, 4(1), 1-32.
Stoller, R. J. (1986). Perversion. The erotic form of hatred. London: Karnac Books Ltd.
Ustinova, Y. (2012). Madness into Memory: Mania and Mnēmē in Greek Culture. Scripta Classica Israelitica, XXXI, 109-131.
Wilk, S. R. (2000). Medusa. Solving the Mystery of the Gorgon. Oxford University Press.
Zachrisson, A. (2013). Oedipus the king: Quest for self-knowledge – denial of reality. Sophocles’ vision of man and psychoanalytic concept formation. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 94, 313-331.
Zeleke, S. A. (2019). The break and continuity of myth in Heraclitus’s philosophy. Global Scientific Journal, 7(11), 168-191.
How to Cite
Perversion and social innovation: the Minotaur, the labyrinth, Ariadne, Theseus, and Attica. (2025). Ricerca Psicoanalitica, 36(3). https://doi.org/10.4081/rp.2025.889
Copyright (c) 2025 the Author(s)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
PAGEPress has chosen to apply the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) to all manuscripts to be published.
