Troianalexandrina

After a brief consideration of the varying approaches to the text of the Libro de Alexandre adopted first by the late nineteenthcentury German philologists, then by the Spanish and American textual scholars of the 1930s and 1940s, followed by the structuralist interpretations from the mid 1950s to 1975 and the popular editions of the 1980s, up to the more contemporary neohistoricist approaches, the author begins by considering the theoretic problems of handling science and technology in the medieval and early modern periods. He goes on to analyse examples of the uniquely wide-ranging admixture of fantasy with sciences and pseudo-sciences in the early thirteenthcentury Spanish poem, and concludes that the Spanish poet takes a surprisingly rationalist view, and only admits with grave doubts the more fantastic stories in his sources when their inclusion is necessary to fill out the iconic biography of Alexander the Great with the reasons for his moral downfall.

The so-called Códice de Roda (Madrid, RAH 78), a 10th century manuscript containing material which deals with Iberian history, also includes a short text whose main character is Alexander the Great. This text derives from the Pseudo-Methodius, a Syriac original translated into Greek by the seventh century, and again into Latin in Merovingian Gaul. However, the Spanish version is a different one. The purpose of my work is to elucidate the role played both by Alexander in this text, and by the text itself in the section of the manuscript most concerned with Islamic polemics and doctrine. At the same time, I try to discover the way in which the Syriac and Greek texts worked in their original literary, political, and religious contexts, to obtain some interpretative keys which could be applied to the Spanish kingdoms and their propaganda in Early Medieval Iberia.

The anonymous author of the Libro de Alexandre introduces himself as a cleric. He is even proud of being a member of this sacerdotal and cultured category, which he considers far superior to entertainers (joglaría). The difference between the two classes is both moral and literary: the anonymous author can use sophisticated rhymes, which depend necessarily upon writing and reading. In contrast, entertainers use only oral resources. The clerics share their academic knowledge with some erudite knights or milites literati, knowing Latin. These mutual interests in classical authors are related to an elitist conception of the mater of Rome, as expressed in the beginning of Roman de Thebes, excluding all but clerics and knights as its listeners. Alexander the Great is the perfect model for miles literatus, knighted and educated, as good in war as in academia, in particular at quadrivium sciences. This model of fortitudo and sapientia in the same person appears in letters praising several princes at the end of the twelfth century, such as Henry of Champaign or Philip of Flanders. The Libro de Alexandre is thus a typical work of the cultural Renaissance and of the royal courts of around 1200. In this period, clerics and knights work together to build the modern State.

This article puts forward a number of examples that may perhaps contribute to confirm the idea that the Libro de Alexandre came from Castilian-Leonese palace circles in the first third of the thirteenth century. This study also suggests that it may have been one of the forms adopted by the monarch's moral and political education, functioning in a manner similar to the Chronica regum Castellae, the Chronicon mundi or even the Historia de rebus Hispaniae, for example. Whilst advancing the theory that historiographical fiction and poetic fiction had many features in common in the context of court reception, an attempt is thus made to demonstrate that the clerical men of letters put their art at their sovereign's disposal.

This paper deals with some linguistic problems raised by the Old Spanish Libro de Alexandre. Since the discovery of the manuscript P in 1888, scholars have raised questions about the original dialect it was written in. After summarizing the achievements of previous research and considering some hotly debated linguistic issues concerning the two manuscripts, O and P, I shall try to discover the methodology that could be applied to solving the linguistic enigma of the Libro de Alexandre’s original dialect. Finally, I shall take a closer look at the syntax of perfects in the Libro de Alexandre, a phenomenon which has been scarcely touched upon before. This topic points to some possible relationships between the language of Eastern Iberia and the language of the Libro de Alexandre.

The present article considers several variable elements within the regular versification of two major vehicles of cuaderna vía poetry: the Libro de Alexandre and the corpus of works ascribed to Gonzalo de Berceo. The use and scansion of Latin is first discussed, a discussion which then broadens into the much wider field of the use of dieresis as both a Latinate inflexion of the vernacular and as a representation of contemporary pronunciation. The shortenting of word-endings, often seen as characteristic of the thirteenth century, is approached through a division of such shortening into ecthlipsis (or the loss of one of two contiguous vowels in different words, such as "todo'l mundo", as repeatedly found in the Alexandre), and apocopation (where the vowel is lost before a word beginning with a consonant, such as "est' conseio"). Rather than immediately taking an overall view of the use of word shortening in the poems, the occurrence of individual words is studied and their frequency analysed, with words grouped according to their dominant use as a part of speech. The results show a trend of gradual change within the Alexandre, thus arguing for a single author over a long period of time; and some significant variation in the Bercean corpus, which would suggest a multiplicity of authors.

The well-known brilliance of the anonymous Libro de Apolonio, the mid-thirteenth century vernacular version of the Historia Apollonii Regis Tyri is distinguished by the high literary stylization of the most significant motifs, and among them the initial incest gemination in the main episodes, as has been suggested by several scholars, such as C. Calvert Phipps and A. Deyermond. However, a part of criticism downplays the reverberation of this incest in one particular case, the musical evening in Pentapolin’s court, while other critics stress its echoes in other episodes without taking into account this one. On the contrary, it is necessary to give a comprehensive dimension to the ‘constructive incest’ between the king Architrastes and his daughter Luciana, together with the projection of this love within the courtly behaviour of Apolonio. The successive steps and offbeats before Apolonio’s concert deliver detailed images which spotlight a subtle game of charm, manipulation and acute perceptions among the three characters. All of this leads Apolonio to obtain the best crown from Architrastes, not only as king of Tyre, which allows him because of his recovered kingship to play music, but as the symbolic king of Pentapolin too, becoming father by transference, master and lover of the princess. The hero achieves this honour because of his ascent in courtly hierarchy, from being of a wretched foreigner to a male bonding with the king, and in his homophilia’s climb may be appreciated the author’s mastery over the poetic and narrative devices.