Medieval Narratives Of Alexander The Great

An investigation into the depiction and reception of the figure of Alexander in the literatures of medieval Europe.

Drawing on decades of research on Alexander literature from all over the world, this book is bound to become a medievalist's best companion. It studies Alexander romances from the East and the West in literary form and content.

Alexander the Great was one of the legendary Nine Worthies in the medieval canon of ancient and modern heroes, and medieval writers exploited his legend in a wide variety of literary and didactic texts. Addressing the classical legacy to the Middle Ages as expressed in four centuries of vernacular narratives, this volume offers the first systematic collective study of Alexander the Great's thematic prominence in medieval culture. Contributors from Britain, France, the Netherlands, and the United States combine sensitive textual analyses with perspectives from such diverse fields as art history, codicology, anthropology, sociology, the history of mentalities, and postcolonial theory. Overall, the collection offers a provocative rethinking of the monumental medieval French tradition of Alexander the Great, as well as valuable insight into the emergence and transformations of French literature between the early twelfth century and the end of the Middle Ages.

The figure of Alexander the Great haunted the medieval imagination - as much as Arthur, as much as Charlemagne. His story was translated more often in medieval Europe than any work except the Gospels. Yet only small sections of the Alexander Romance have been translated into modern French, and Nigel Bryant's is the first translation into English. The Deeds and Conquests of Alexander the Great is Jehan Wauquelin's superb compendium, written for the Burgundian court in the mid-fifteenth century, which draws together all the key elements of the Alexandrian tradition.With great clarity and intelligence Wauquelin produced a redaction of all the major Alexander romances of the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries - including the verse Roman d'Alexandre, The Vows of the Peacock and La Venjance Alixandre - to tell the whole story of Alexander's miraculous birth and childhood, his conquests of Persia and India, his battles with fabulous beasts and outlandish peoples, his journeys in the sky and under the sea, his poisoning at Babylon and the vengeance taken by his son. This is an accomplished and exciting work by a notable writer at the Burgundian court who perfectly understood the appeal of the great conqueror to ambitious dukes intent upon extending their dominions. Nigel Bryant has translated five major Arthurian romances from medieval French, including Perceforest in which Alexander features prominently. He has also translated the fourteenth-century chronicles of Jean le Bel.

Alexander the Great of Macedon was no stranger to controversy in his own time. Conqueror of the Greek states, of Egypt and of the Persian Empire as well as many of the principalities of the Indus Valley, he nevertheless became revered as well as vilified. Was he simply a destroyer of the ancient civilizations and religions of these regions, or was he a hero of the Persian dynasties and of Islam? The conflicting views that were taken of him in the Middle East in his own time and the centuries that followed are still reflected in the tensions that exist between east and west today. The story of Alexander became the subject of legend in the medieval west, but was perhaps even more pervasive in the east. The Alexander Romance was translated into Syriac in the sixth century and may have become current in Persia as early as the third century AD. From these beginnings it reached into the Persian national epic, the Shahnameh, into Jewish traditions, and into the Quran and subsequent Arab romance. The papers in this volume all have the aim of deepening our understanding of this complex development. If we can understand better why Alexander is such an important figure in both east and west, we shall be a little closer to understanding what unites two often antipathetic worlds. This volume collects the papers delivered at the conference of the same title held at the University of Exeter from July 26-29 2010. More than half the papers were by invited speakers and were designed to provide a systematic view of the subject; the remainder were selected for their ability to carry research forward in an integrated way.

In the Middle Ages, the life story of Alexander the Great was a well-traveled tale. Known in numerous versions, many of them derived from the ancient Greek Alexander Romance, it was told and re-told throughout Europe, India, the Middle East, and Central Asia. The essays collected in Alexander the Great in the Middle Ages examine these remarkable legends not merely as stories of conquest and discovery, but also as representations of otherness, migration, translation, cosmopolitanism, and diaspora. Alongside studies of the Alexander legend in medieval and early modern Latin, English, French, German, and Persian, Alexander the Great in the Middle Ages breaks new ground by examining rarer topics such as Hebrew Alexander romances, Coptic and Arabic Alexander materials, and early modern Malay versions of the Alexander legend. Brought together in this wide-ranging collection, these essays testify to the enduring fascination and transcultural adaptability of medieval stories about the extraordinary Macedonian leader.

Alexander the Great is an unexpected yet important hero of a number of ancient and medieval Jewish narratives. He appears in historical works, prophecies, moralizing parables and in a number of fantastic stories retelling his life and deeds. These legends were in circulation very early on: the earliest written accounts on Alexander in Jewish tradition are older than the ones preserved from the Graeco-Roman world. This book is devoted to the analysis of the image of Alexander in Jewish literature. By tracing his image as an exemplary foreign king, a leader chosen by God, an object of moral critique and a traveller in far, imagined lands we can shed some light on a number of interesting features of Jewish-Graeco-Roman cultural exchange. The book should be of interest for those studying Jewish culture and classical reception as well as scholars dealing with the development of the legendary image of Alexander the Great.