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Une constante de l’imaginaire virgilien: la complémentarité des contraires, comme condition de la complexité
2006-08-22T07:20:02Z
Abstract
C. Lévi-Strauss argues that there are multiple codes (literature, art, religion, political structures, daily life) by which to translate the same myth. In this context, it is possible to identify invariants and dynamic organization of constellations of images. In this paper we shall monitor the recurrence of dualistic structures in Virgil, and more generally in the imagination of the Romans. This analysis takes its cue from the idea of conflict generator, based on the reflections of Levi-Strauss: namely, that the structure as a whole derives from the conflict of two antagonistic attractors. This conflict tends to overshoot its own, its “logic of antagonism” (S. Lupasco). Theories of complexity will be employed to shed light on this point. This explains the coexistence of two constellations in the Virgilian work: the figures of heroic dualism, and those of unifying mysticism; Homer and Plato are integrated into a global Virgilian perspective, through which the Roman appears to himself and to the others. The passage from the War figures to those of the Alliance in books VII-XII of the Aeneid is a good example of this pattern.