O Minotauro by Monteiro Lobato: a didactic adaptation of the myth in children’s literature

Abstract

Graeco-Latin mythology is usually found in children’s literature to make myths known to a wider public. However, in some works for children the myth is integrated with other stories so that, apart from the epistemological function, we can identify didactic and entertaining purposes. These stories display a series of mechanisms of adaptation that facilitate the readers’ approach to Classical Antiquity and their identification with the main characters. The first author to apply these mechanisms in Brazil was Monteiro Lobato in O Minotauro and Os doze trabalhos de Hércules. In this paper, we analyse the different adaptation mechanisms found in his work O Minotauro and Lobato’s specific and didactic reutilisation of this myth.