Alexander Romance
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The Alexander Romance is any of several collections of legends concerning the mythical exploits of Alexander the Great. The earliest version is in Greek, dating to the 3rd century. Several late manuscripts attribute the work to Alexander's court historian Callisthenes, but the historical figure died before Alexander and couldn't have written a full account of his life. The unknown author is still sometimes called "Pseudo-Callisthenes."
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[edit] Versions of the romance
Alexander was a legend in his own time. In a now-lost history of the king, the historical Callisthenes portrayed the sea in Cilicia as drawing back from him in proskynesis. Writing after Alexander's death, another participant, Onesicritus, went so far as to invent a tryst between Alexander and Thalestris, queen of the mythical Amazons. (When Onesicritus read this passage to his patron Lysimachus, one of Alexander's generals who went on to become a king himself, Lysimachus quipped "I wonder where I was at the time.")
Throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages, the Romance underwent numerous expansions and revisions exhibiting a plasticity unseen in "higher" literary forms. Latin and Syriac translations were made in Late Antiquity. From these, versions were developed in all the major languages of Europe and the Middle East, including Armenian, Georgian, Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Hebrew, Serbian, Slavonic, Romanian, Hungarian, German, English, Italian, and French. Farther east, a late Mongol version is also extant.
The story of Dhul-Qarnayn in the Qur'an (Sura The Cave 18:83-98) matches the Gog and Magog episode in the Romance, which has caused some controversy among Islamic scholars. Alexander was identified in Persian and Arabic-language sources as "Dhû-'l Qarnayn", Arabic for the "Horned One", likely a reference to the ram horns Alexander wears on coins minted during his rule to indicate his descent from the Egyptian god Ammon. Islamic accounts of the Alexander legend, particularly in Persia, combined the Pseudo-Callisthenes material with indigenous Sasanid Persian ideas about Alexander. The Alexander Romance is the source of many incidents in Ferdowsi's Shahnama.
Some believe that, excepting certain religious texts, it is the most widely-read work of pre-modern times.
[edit] Li romans d'Alixandre: Alexander in 12th century French literature
Attributed to French clergyman Alexandre de Bernay (also known as Alexandre de Pâris), the Roman d'Alexandre (Li romans d'Alixandre) is based on the translations of various episodes of the conqueror's life as composed by previous poets (Lambert de Tort, Eustache and more importantly Albéric of Besancon). Unlike other authors of the era who undertook the Alexander saga, he did not base his work on the Pseudo-Callisthenes or on the various translations of Julius Valerius's work. As is common in medieval literature, the project stems from the desire to improve on the work of others and to offer the complete life of the hero to the public, a theme that is also very present in the cyclical turn that the chansons de geste took at the time. It is to be noted that Thomas de Kent also penned (probably) the very same decade a version of the saga, Le roman de toute chevalerie, which is independent of Alexandre de Bernay's poem: Alexander's influence on the medieval imagination is thus shown as being as great, if not greater, than that of other pagan figures such as Hercules or Aeneas.
In part poème épique and roman, Alexandre's work explores in great detail (and ambiguity) the various facets of the character, combining both the "estoire rose" and "estoire noire". This results in a lush characterization that is absent in the previous poems. The poem also undertakes, like many medieval writings, the education of young noblemen (the "gentils chevalieres") and paints a picture of the political and social changes present at the time (the accession to power of common men and the poverty that thus strike the lower levels of nobility and the recentralization of power in 12th century France). Alexander is shown as generous, loyal and courageous: he is a protective and giving figure, the emblem of unification of the noblemen under one active and strong voice.
The exploration of the mysteries of India also is an important theme of the work, one that was surely impressive to the medieval public (akin to important scientific breakthroughs nowadays, for example). Not only brave and generous, our hero is also cunning and curious, wanting to understand the various phenomena that he will encounter on his path. The desire to conquer land and castles is thus reactivated by the desire to conquer the realm of knowledge (the voyage in the sky and underwater), but also the realm of immortality, as is shown by the will of the hero to equal mythic characters such as Hercules and Dionysus who became demi-gods after defeating their mortal conditions by various feat of strength and wisdom. Alexander will not realize this goal: poisoned by his own men (the "sers felons" Antipater and Divinuspater), as was another key figure of the work, Darius. The cause of the death of the hero is shroudded in ambiguity: prophetic in nature, it poses the problem of divine retribution, patricide and political mistakes. Was Alexander killed because of his desire to elevate himself to the gods' level? Was he killed by the magician Nectanabo, who is his father in the Greek and Roman tradition, and who also presided over his birth (Alexander kills him in a spite of rage)? Or was he killed because he gave his trust to men of inferior condition?
The poem, by not giving a definitive answer to this question, stresses the importance of respect of religious and father figures (whether real father figures, or authority figures in the feudal system), while reminding the young nobles who are the public of the tale to associate themselves only with other nobles. Very baroque in composition and esthetic, Alexandre de Bernay's version of the poem is the basis of Alexander's myth in the French literature to come with many continuations depicting mainly the vengeance of the "douze pairs" or shedding a different light on the life of the conqueror.
[edit] The Alexander Romance in Middle English
In medieval England the Alexander Romance experieced a remarkable popularity. It is even referred to in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, where the monk apologizes to the reader for treating a material so well known. However, unlike the indigenous legend of King Arthur and the related romances dealing with the Matter of Britain, the Alexander Romance neither confines itself to the history and culture of Western Europe, nor is it a story situated in the Middle Ages. There are five major romances in Middle English which have been passed down to us and most remain only in fragments.
Alexander A, which is sometimes also referred to as The Romance of Alexander or Alexander of Macedon, is a fragment of 1247 lines and written in alliterative verse. It was probably written between 1340 and 1370, shortly before the beginning of the alliterative revival, of which it is believed to be one of the oldest remaining poems. It has been preserved in a school notebook dating from 1600. In the broad strokes Alexander A deals with the begetting of Alexander by Nectanebus, his birth and early years and breaks off in the midst of the account of Philip's siege of Byzantium. It is likely that the source for this fragment has been the I²-recension of the Historia de Preliis. Beside that it has been expanded with additional material taken from Paulus Orosius' Historiae adversum paganos, the adverse remarks, which are typical of Orosius, however have been omitted by the poet, whose main concern is Alexander's heroic conduct.
Alexander B, also often referred to as Alexander and Dindimus, is also written in alliterative verse. This fragment is found in the MS Bodley and consists of five letters which are passed between Alexander and Dindimus, who is the king of the Brahmins, a people of philosophers who shun all worldly lusts, ambitions and entertainments. In this respect their way of life resembles the ideal of an aescetic life, which was also preached by medieval monastic orders, such as the Franciscans. The source of Alexander B again is the I²-recension of the Historia de Preliis.
Alexander C, or The Wars of Alexander as it is also called, is the longest of the allitertive versions of the Middle English Alexander Romances. It goes back to the I³-recension of the Historia de Preliis and can be found in the MS Ashmole 44 and in the Dublin Trinity College MS 213. Although both manuscripts are incomplete they supplement each other fairly well. In this version much space is given to letters and prophecies, which oftentimes bear a moralizing and philosophical tenor. The letters are an integral part of the Pseudo-Callisthenes tradition. The dominant theme is pride, which inevitably leads to the downfall of kings. In The Wars of Alexander the hero is endowed with superhuman qualities, which shows in the romance in so far as his enemies fall to him by the dozens and he is always at the center of action
[edit] References
- Martin Gosman, Le roman de toute chevalerie et le public visé: la légende au service de la royauté, Neophilologus, 72 (1988), 335-343.
- Martin Gosman, Le roman d'Alexandre et les "juvenes": une approche socio-historique, Neophilologus, 66 (1982), 328-339.
- Martin Gosman, La légende d'Alexandre le Grand dans la littérature française du douzième siècle, Rodopi, 1997. ISBN 90-420-0213-1
- Laurence Harf-Lancner (translator and commentator, edited by Armstrong and al.), Le roman d'Alexandre, Livre de poche, 1994, ISBN 2-253-06655-9
- Richard Stoneman (editor and translator), The Greek Alexander Romance, Penguin, 1991. ISBN 0-14-044560-9
