Restless Reinvention: Solitude Under Construction in "El Laberinto de la Soledad" by Octavio Paz

This dissertation examines the theme of solitude in El laberinto de la soledad (1950, second ed. 1959) by Octavio Paz. In contrast to critical approaches that render solitude in El laberinto de la soledad more one-dimensionally, this study treats Paz's highly nuanced treatment of the idea. It adopts a long-range perspective, tracing a trajejctory of Paz's early experimentations with the theme of solitude and demonstrating how the idea was continually reinvented in the author's early career. These re-castings manifest how Paz endeavored to keep the concept of solitude open-ended, poetic, enigmatic and continually ripe for reinvention in new intellectual phases. My dissertation argues that solitude became a flexible hermeneutical optic and conceptual poetic muse that Paz subsequently overlaid onto his most renowned essay on national culture, El laberinto de la soledad..