La figure du labyrinthe entre philosophie, art et littérature

Abstract

The aim of this article is to draw analogies between the Prisons by Piranesi and The Castle by Franz Kafka in the light of the figure of the labyrinth. In these specific cases, the architectonics (as a pseudo- arrangement of perspective planes) and the plot (as a factitious connection between action sequences) enclose the illusion of depth and the impression of duration in the vicious circles of the lines of rupture and of the missed events, respectively. The Piranesian atopic topic (from atopos, « out of place ») and the Kafkaesque apraxic practice (from apraktos, « inconclusive ») are both based on unsurpassable antinomies and, in this particular respect, seem to revive Zeno of Elea’s paradoxes of motion and Diodorus Cronus’ aporia of becoming, which Gottfried W. Leibniz considers to be two labyrinths.