The Labyrinth Poem

Abstract

The labyrinth, the mythical structure conceived by Daedalus, has been a persistent motif throughout the history of Mediterranean culture. We find it both in visual art of all kinds as well as in literature, and also in the fascinating noman’s-land between these two. In the area of word-image interaction there exists a whole collection of texts that were given the name "poetical labyrinths." The origin of labyrinthine poems goes back to the Rome of Augustus Caesar; the visual pattern of these pieces seems to indicate the pattern of a magical dance, perhaps the ancient Greek dance of the Grue. The idea of the poem in medieval times seems also to encompass the idea of the city, of the heavenly Jerusalem. Medieval poetical labyrinths have definite religious connotations, as is also evident in the later works of this genre, influenced by the Jewish Kabbala. This hermeneutic is still valid for the baroque in the case of a number of works, yet more and more labyrinth poems appear in a secularized, ornamental context. This article traces the most significant of these lines of development of this form and its function.