f Artù e Alessandro: il pavillon dell'eroe Nel Roman d'Alexandre e Nella Geste des Bretuns in alessandrini (Harley Brut)

Within the Roman d'Alexandre, in both the Venice and Alexandre de Paris’s versions, we find a description of the hero's pavillon, a well-known topos in Old French literature. This description in the Roman d'Alexandre shares a number of common features with that of king Arthur's tent found in the Geste des Bretuns (Harley Brut), an Anglo-Norman Alexandrine verse translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae. A closer look at both texts leads to the conclusion that the author of the Geste may have known the Roman d'Alexandre and used it as a source for the passage in question. Thus the Geste des Bretuns would be an additional witness to the diffusion of the Roman d'Alexandre in Anglo-Norman England. This intertextuality allows to better understanding some characteristics of the Geste, above all the original use of the pavillon-topos in the shaping of Arthur’s role.