Gollesten's Shadow

The following excerpt reveals well the extent to which Gollesten's views continue to exert influence over contemporary labyrinth studies. This passage sheds light on Gollesten's complicated interpretation of the ethical ramifications of boundary circumvention.

I urge anyone with even a passing interest in modern or postmodern labcrit to seek out Stalle's recent translations of Gollesten's Framework, and its companion text The Horizon of the Passage, at all costs.



"...we find in boundary circumvention a most glaring example of the unethical labyrinthian. So possessed is he by the need to reach the labyrinth’s telos, or perhaps to facilitate a state of affairs in which he might perceive the labyrinth as a whole, in its grand totality, that he violates the oldest principle of the labyrinth: he attempts to scale the massive stone columns that surround him, he thrashes through the tangles of hedging which encapsulate him and form the straits through which he has long wandered in toil and torment. Why, you may ask, is this such a transgression? Is not the man who transcends the strictures of the labyrinth merely just startlingly enterprising, perhaps even ingenious? Has not such a man found what amounts to a “shortcut” (Abkürzung) to avoid the perils which have befallen those sainted labyrinthians who alighted upon the darkened corridors for time immemorial before him?

I urge any man who would take this view to reevaluate not merely this perspective, but his whole moral constitution as such. I ask you, by the same logic, is not the man who steals his daily bread simply a wizened intellect who has found a way to sate his appetite with no recompense? Has the man who convinces the cordwainer that his boots are made not of wood but of pure Moroccan jute not committed an injustice to Saint Crispin? Let us allow the writing of Kant to guide our thinking: an ethic of the labyrinth hinges upon a categorical understanding of ethics as a whole. To endeavor to transcend the walls of the labyrinth violates the principle law of the labyrinth and thus is tantamount to blasphemy. In a more abstract sense, such an action effectively transforms the labyrinth’s structure at large. The center becomes not the telos but a mere grain of visual datum - a destination, but not a goal. The perimeter too becomes re-accessible, so much so that we might witness from the top of an obelisk our well-wishing colleagues in the wold surrounding us, saluting and carrying on, puzzled but amused to see us transcending the formal edicts of the labyrinth."