The unveiling of the sacred in Eliade’s Men and Stones

摘要

In Mircea Eliade’s Men and Stones, two cave explorers, Alexandru and Petrus, seek to imaginatively recreate a distant human dawn after they discover the sacred stones of cave dwellers. The living stones become a metaphor for an eternal dimension of transient humanity and for a sentient universe. The title of this play is taken from the Koran and evokes Alexandru’s crisis of despair in the cave. After he is injured in a fall, Alexandru experiences a revelation that confirms love as a pathway to knowledge and as the surest means of escape from the labyrinth of despair.