Parole chiave
Come citare
Abstract
Lévi-Strauss, the indolent exegete. (Imitative counterpoint). The article reopens the interpretive debate on the Oedipus myth by critically examining the structuralist analysis proposed by Claude Lévi-Strauss in Structural Anthropology. While endorsing the exegetical method based on the search for invariants, the author challenges its concrete application, identifying conceptual distortions and logical errors in the classification of mythèmes, as well as a euphemistic tendency in the treatment of the myth’s passions. Through a more stringent reapplication of the same method, the article proposes a unified reinterpretation of the invariants that allows the entire mythic framework to be traced back to a coherent principle, one that reflects ancient Greek thought and shows how these myths functioned as genuine explanatory theories of critical situations and the causes of social disorder. The article concludes by arguing that structural anthropology has a predominantly descriptive vocation, whereas psychoanalysis is capable of providing a causal explanation of the myth and its symbolic functions.