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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."
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, Alexander's general and later King 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 Qu'ran (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.
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.
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 9042002131
- Laurence Harf-Lancner (translator and commentator, edited by Armstrong and al.), Le roman d'Alexandre, Livre de poche, 1994, ISBN 2253066559
- Richard Stoneman (editor and translator), The Greek Alexander Romance, Penguin, 1991. ISBN 0140445609
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