Octavio Paz, El laberinto de la soledad [The Labyrinth of Solitude]

Pascale Baker (University College Dublin)

Ed. by Carolina Orloff, Independent Scholar - Europe
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 4.1.3: Hispanic Writing and Culture of Central America and the Caribbean.
Vol. editors: Ben Bollig (University of Oxford), Ceire Broderick (University College Cork), Nuala Finnegan (University College Cork), Anna Forné (Gothenburg University), Cara Levey (University College Cork), Lori Oxford (Western Carolina University), Ailsa Peate (University of Westminster)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1950

Places

Mexico (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Non-Fiction
- Essay Collection

Resources

El laberinto de la soledad [The Labyrinth of Solitude] (henceforth, Laberinto) was first published in 1950 and is Mexican author Octavio Paz’s most acclaimed and commented upon work. The text has been described as a hybrid work (Stanton 2001: 210), eluding easy classification as it oscillates between epic essay, historical narrative, poetry and psycho-sociological rumination. Perhaps this can be largely explained by Laberinto’s broad scope, touching on folklore, history, myth, politics and psychology. All of these disciplines are linked to the central subject of identity and what it meant to be Mexican in the post-Revolutionary era of the 1940s, when Paz was composing Laberinto. However, despite …

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3940 words

Citation: Baker, Pascale. "El laberinto de la soledad". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 April 2016 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=31812, accessed 22 November 2024.]

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