Troianalexandrina

The following essay attempts, using the tools of literary history, hermeneutics and phenomonology, to explore the poetics of courtly space in medieval Romance literature. Thus, the Benoît de Sainte-Maure's Roman de Troie is taken as a model, since it subsists as a cornerstone within the literary and iconographic tradition of the theme of the City of Troy, stretching between Antiquity and the end of the Middle Ages. In particular, we delineate how the urban space of Troy in Benoît's work is constituted through a rewriting and reimagining of the Heavenly Jerusalem of Revelation, whose meaning affects the reading of the poem as a whole. Outside the verse Roman de Troie this form of reading is unproductive, and the symbolic space created by Benoît is trammelled by the "estoire" and impulses towards rationalization. In spite of this, the iconographic tradition (such as Alfonso XI's version of the Historia troyana) shows the survival of a conflict between symbolic and rationalizing interpretations, and provides an example of the survival of archaic models of depiction which go beyond the literal meaning expressed in the text. The vitality —even in a potentially hostile environment— of the imaginitive mode which underlies the creative process in the Roman de Troie can thus be shown, as well as its generative power on the level of literary fiction.

Alexander's visit to the Oracle of Ammon in Siwah is an important moment in his life: although supposedly a descendant of Herakles and a devotee of Dionisios, he wished - in an attempt to further legitimize his power - to be known as the son of Ammon. Diverse retellings of this episode are provided by several ancient sources, which also indicate the problems that Alexander's divine paternity created. This paper considers how these matters were transmitted to the Middle Ages, with special attention given to the Libro de Alexandre, which integrates varied traditions regarding Alexander's descent, whilst adapting them to specifically medieval cultural context.

The historical Alexander the Great is celebrated for his campaigns of conquest in the East. Educated by Aristotle, and raised to be king by his father, he proved himself able to understand and rule the world he discovered. During the Middle Ages, Alexandre de Paris wrote a novelized account of Alexander the Great's life. An underlying narrative thread in this version highlights Aristotle's teachings —both through the expected medieval curriculum and through empirical instruction— on how to battle and rule by wit as much as by brute force. In episode after episode, Alexander the Great learns to master his emotions, language and knowledge in order to develop a strategy of power/force based on intelligence and subtlety, especially as related to speech. His use of wit and of double-meaning in speech to govern became legendary. This article discusses the fundamental importance of education in making the Alexander saga an effective political example and counter example, a true Mirror for Princes, for rulers during the Middle Ages.

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.

In this work, our aim is to approach the possible sources which were used by Lluís de Fenollet to do his Catalan translation of the Historiae Alexandri Magni by Quintus Curcius Rufus. We are not trying to analyze the whole work. Instead, we concentrate on the first nine chapters of the Catalan version which are based on Plutarch's Parallel Lives. We focus on this specific part because it is the most original and it is different from Curcius´s work.

In the Taxiarches church at Melies of Pelion, there is, among other interesting and rare wall paintings, a depiction of Saint Christopher dating from 1774. What is unusual about this painting is that the saint is depicted with the head of a dog. The common theme for representations of Saint Christopher is, as his name suggests, a tall man carrying Christ across a stream. The eastern tradition of the saint’s Vita, refers to his origin from the race of the Cynocephali. This tradition was transferred to the west earlier than the 10th century and was transmitted by Irish monks to the British Isles. Only a couple of such depictions, however, survive there and few in the regions of the Orthodox Church, all from the 17th century onwards. By looking back on the ancient lore of the race of the Cynocephali, this article tries to identify the connection between the two iconographic traditions of Saint Christopher. The fresco is also linked to the iconographic program of the whole church as many of the themes are rare and indicate a relation, or at least a knowledge, to the west.

This article presents and analyses specific sources and issues relating to the difficult problem of identifying the presence of Greek, and the depth of knowledge thereof, in Ireland during the centuries that preceded the Carolingian Renaissance. This short paper is specifically motivated by the current lack of a common methodological-interpretative framework which can be fruitfully applied to this subject, together with continuing lack of consensus amongst scholars. This deficiency exists despite the fact that the answer to this difficult question would provide a fundamental key to a more exhaustive understanding of the influence of Early Medieval Irish culture —especially religious— on that of continental Europe, and also sheds light on the traditional debate between the proponents of Irophobie and those of Iromanie.