Une construction littéraire d'Aristote: du philosophe au chevalier de la logique

We owe the first medieval representation of Aristotle as writer to Walter of Châtillon in his Alexandreis (1178 to 1182), a poem written during a period in which the logica nova penetrated the schools thanks to the complete translation of the Stagirite’s Organon. On the other hand, this literary construction inaugurates the representation of the Stagirite in French texts, in a context where Aristotle’s treatises remain proble­matic. Walter of Châtillon’s Aristotle is a cleric whose primary role is to educate a young Alexander the Great; however, the magister seems to be more involved in a different task: writing the Sophistic Refutations. Aristotle is then elevated to the rank of rhetorical warrior. This image seems to influence French authors such as Henri d' Andeli and Henri de Valenciennes, who exploit the double semantics of elenchos, which is both the Greek title of the Sophistic Refutations and a refutation argu­ment, in their own stories.