Literary notes about LABYRINTH (AI summary)
In literature, "labyrinth" functions as both a literal description of a tangled, maze-like structure and a metaphor for the convolutions of human experience. It is employed to evoke vivid physical settings—narrative spaces where characters may find themselves hopelessly lost in narrow alleys or intricate passages [1], [2], [3]—as well as to symbolize the complex, often paradoxical nature of personal emotions and intellectual pursuits [4], [5]. At times, the term recalls legendary constructions such as Daedalus’s famous design [6], thereby connecting myth with the existential dilemmas inherent in human life. This layered usage enriches the text by simultaneously grounding the reader in a tangible world of twisting corridors and suggesting the inescapable intricacies of thought and fate.
- He crossed the little river Crinchon, and found himself in a labyrinth of narrow alleys where he lost his way.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo - I don't know what I expected, but I went out, and wandered eastward, soon losing my way in a labyrinth of grimy streets and black, grassless squares.
— from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde - Below the bridge there is a perfect labyrinth of landing-places for miles.
— from The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle - We have discovered that happiness; we know the way; we got our knowledge of it from thousands of years in the labyrinth.
— from The Antichrist by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - The more deeply we penetrate into the labyrinth of art, the further we find ourselves from those ends for which we entered it.
— from The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12) by Edmund Burke - [752] Dædalus : Who escaped on wings of his invention from the Cretan Labyrinth he had made and lost himself in.
— from The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: The Inferno by Dante Alighieri
