Theseus Revisited: Commitment through Myth

Abstract

Gide’s relationship to the extraordinarily rich world of Greek mythology is a complex and ambivalent subject, and many modern critical studies have explored various aspects of this relationship, from its presence as a constant aesthetic referent to its potential as a unique discursive framework.² Indeed, Gide’s interest in myth, as with his attraction to Christian motifs, represents a consistent force throughout his life and a fundamental referential thread throughout his textual corpus, from the 1891 Traité du Narcisse through the 1946 Thésée. Gide employed a mythic backdrop to explore a variety of generic forms, composing mythologically based texts within such forms as the récit, the dramatic text, the sotie, the treatise, the essay, and the Socratic dialogue. References to Greco-Roman myth abound as well in his correspondence and his personal papers, in his conversations and his lectures. Clearly Gide felt a deep attachment to the dynamic system of the ancient modes of thought and art; he obviously discovered in the myths of antiquity something more powerful than merely an evocative historical framework or a provocative narrative structure.

Portions of this essay have appeared in my article “André Gide: Myth as Individual History,” Dalhousie French Studies 33 (1995): 55–70.