Oriental Motifs in the Alexander Romance

Antichthon ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 95-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Stoneman
Keyword(s):  
Direct Influence ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Alexander The Great ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Art And Literature ◽  
Greek Tradition ◽  
Alexander Romance

Over the centuries, the fabulous adventures of Alexander the Great have become as prominent in art and literature as his historical achievements. Medieval artists in particular are frequent sources of depictions of the hero in such adventures as the search for the water of life, the flight into the air in a basket borne by eagles, the descent into the sea in a diving bell, the interview with the talking trees of India and the visit to the dwellings of the gods. Familiar as these episodes are—or were—it is easy for us to forget how completely new a thing they represent in the tradition of Greek prose writing. With the decipherments of cuneiform some one hundred years ago, a number of scholars concluded that they could not have been developed entirely within the Greek tradition, and posited direct influence from one or more Babylonian or other near eastern sources or traditions to explain the occurrence in Greek literature of these curious tales. Despite the antiquity of these arguments, they have been accepted without examination by many more recent writers on the Alexander Romance.

Review Article: Recent Travels in Alexanderland

2014 ◽  
Vol 134 ◽  
pp. 136-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh Bowden
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Alexander The Great ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Alexander Romance

Abstract:This review of recent books about Alexander the Great and related topics focuses in particular on how much attention scholars have paid to the eastern aspects of the history and historiography of the period. It traces the identification of Alexander as an essentially ‘western’ figure back to the period of the Enlightenment, and shows how the work of scholars in the 18th century set the terms of the subsequent debate. It goes on to show how work on the Alexander Romance displays a far broader and inclusive range of intellectual approaches than traditional Alexander historiography, and suggests that the study of the historical Alexander would benefit from seeing Alexander as belonging in a Near Eastern context as well as a Greek or Macedonian one.

Phoenician Literature

2019 ◽  
pp. 255-269
Author(s):  
Carolina López-Ruiz
Keyword(s):  
Historical Records ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
Great Loss ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Manuscript Tradition ◽  
Travel Accounts

There was, without a doubt, a Phoenician and Punic literature. Very little of it is extant, but we have enough of it to gauge the great loss. Lacking the advantage of its own manuscript tradition and later cultures devoted to it, Phoenician literature was not systematically preserved, unlike that of the Greeks, Romans, and Israelites. What we have are small pieces that surface among the Classical literary corpus. Despite these unfavorable conditions, an impressive range of literary genres is attested, concentrated in particular genres. Some of this literature aligned with broader ancient Near Eastern tradition: cosmogony, foundation stories, historical records, and other areas that correspond with Phoenician expertise (travel accounts or itineraries, agricultural treatises). Other genres were likely adopted through Greek influence (narrative histories, philosophy). Moreover, from Hellenistic times onward, works by Phoenician authors had to be written and transmitted in Greek in order to survive. Nonetheless, the chapter cautions that we should not lightly categorize them as merely “Greek” literature, at least in the cases in which we know the authors are Phoenicians (including Carthaginians) writing about Phoenician matters.

Scottish Alexanders and Stuart Empire

2019 ◽  
pp. 113-148
Author(s):  
Su Fang Ng
Keyword(s):  
Alexander The Great ◽  
Economic Basis ◽  
Spice Trade ◽  
James Iv ◽  
Alexander Romance

This chapter examines how the Scottish Alexander Romance, Buik of King Alexander the Conquerour, raises issues that are important to the ambitions of James IV of Scotland: religious crusade and dynastic expansion through marriage. Composed in 1460 and attributed to Gilbert Hay, Buik features a crusading Alexander the Great fighting Muslim enemies. The novel’s representation of Alexander’s enemies as Muslims references European fears of the growing power of the Ottomans. James IV wanted both to unite England and Scotland through his marriage and to unite Christendom against the Turks. The chapter discusses Alexander’s transformation from crusader into a merchant in the East, suggesting that it points to the underlying economic basis of the revival of crusading rhetoric—Ottoman control of the spice trade. These two themes—union and crusade—were continuing preoccupations of later Stuarts, including James VI of Scotland.

Hellenistic Literature

Classics ◽  
2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dee L. Clayman
Keyword(s):  
Social Changes ◽  
Alexander The Great ◽  
Traditional Definition ◽  
Art And Literature ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Greek World

The Hellenistic era, so named by J. G. Droysen, begins with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 bce and ends in 31 bce, when the Romans effectively took control of the Mediterranean after the battle of Actium. The term was later applied to the cultural output of the age by Wilamowitz. The dramatic developments in art and literature, philosophy and science that characterize this period are usually attributed to the dramatic political and social changes that swept over the Greek world after Alexander’s death. This picture is complicated by the fact that some aspects of the Hellenistic appear in the last part of the 4th century, when the social and political changes that theoretically inspired them were only just getting under way. Though these and other difficulties have challenged the traditional definition, on the whole it has proven to be a useful label.

DIRCE AT THEBES

2007 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
DANIEL W. BERMAN
Keyword(s):  
Flowing Water ◽  
Careful Attention ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Greek Tradition ◽  
One To One ◽  
The City

In Boeotian Thebes, the simplest thirst for topographical detail will turn up a reference to Dirce. Whether depicted as a nymph, a spring, a river, or simply as flowing water, the name represents an integral, perhaps indispensable, part of the Theban landscape. But of course it is more than that. A narrative surrounds this watery place, telling of Theban kings and queens, of founding twins, and of odd and cruel tortures and torments. It is my goal in this article to understand these varying traditions surrounding Dirce by means of an examination of the interplay between mythic narratives and Theban topography. Narratives of Dirce grow and develop in relation to the physical landscape of the city, but this relationship is seldom reducible to a one-to-one correlation of story and place. The early Greek tradition has much to say about Dirce, some of it contradictory. But superficial contradiction is the norm in this realm, and some sense can be made of what we have with careful attention to the changing contexts surrounding appearances of Dirce as they are expressed and understood in early Greek literature, and to the changing ways the city of Thebes is described in the Greek mythic tradition.

scholarly journals The Greek Phyllada and the Old Serbian Alexander Romance

2015 ◽  
pp. 257-289
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Usakiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Alexander The Great ◽  
Serbian Version ◽  
Alexander Romance

The Greek Phyllada and the Old Serbian Alexander RomanceThe texts presents chosen fragments of the Greek "Phyllada", or the story about Alexander the Great, and its Polish translation, with an introduction commenting the relation between the Greek and Serbian version of Alexader's gesta.

Alexander the Great from Britain to Southeast Asia

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Su Fang Ng
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Alexander The Great ◽  
Cultural Engagement ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
Age Of Exploration ◽  
Alexander Romance ◽  
Literary Networks

No figure has had a more global impact than Alexander the Great, whose legends have encircled the globe and been translated into a dizzying multitude of languages, from Indo-European and Semitic to Turkic and Austronesian. This book examines parallel traditions of the Alexander Romance in Britain and Southeast Asia, demonstrating how rival Alexanders—one Christian, the other Islamic—became central figures in their respective literatures. In the early modern age of exploration, both Britain and Southeast Asia turned to literary imitations of Alexander to imagine their own empires and international relations, defining themselves as peripheries against the Ottoman Empire’s imperial center: this shared classical inheritance became part of an intensifying cross-cultural engagement in the encounter between the two, allowing a revealing examination of their cultural convergences and imperial rivalries and a remapping of the global literary networks of the early modern world. Rather than absolute alterity or strangeness, the narrative of these parallel traditions is one of contact—familiarity and proximity, unexpected affinity and intimate strangers.

Panhellenic Program of Hadrian

2020 ◽  
pp. 59-63
Author(s):  
Georgiy D. Gabarashvili
Keyword(s):  
Second Century ◽  
Alexander The Great ◽  
Roman Emperor ◽  
Greek Tradition ◽  
Full Analysis ◽  
Jewish Revolt ◽  
The Ideal

The Panhellenic project of the Roman Emperor Hadrian (117-138 AD) to unite the Greek Polis into a single organization is considered. It is noted that Hadrian's policy was based on the romanticized idea of reviving the classical Greek tradition. In particular, the ideal of the new Union was Athens, Sparta, Corinth, and other cities of mainland Greece, which preserved the foundations of their Polis organization and self-government until the second century. It is assumed that the Union was not all-Greek, since it did not affect the Hellenistic cities founded after the campaigns of Alexander the Great. In addition, the article examines the negative manifestations of Hadrian's Philhellenic policy, which are observed in a major Jewish revolt caused by the forced Hellenization of the Eastern provinces of the Empire. The works of foreign researchers are involved for the full analysis of the issue.

Bending the Bow

2019 ◽  
pp. 405-426
Author(s):  
Richard Stoneman
Keyword(s):  
Greek Literature ◽  
Alexander The Great ◽  
Indian Soil ◽  
Greek Drama ◽  
The World

This chapter discusses Greek literature in India. The first Greek play ever performed on Indian soil may have been written by Alexander the Great. This was Agen, a satyr play performed on the banks of the river Hydaspes before Alexander's departure from India. The chapter also considers whether Greek drama became well enough known in India to have an impact on the development of indigenous Indian performance; and the influence of the Homeric poems on Indian poetry. It also argues that Greek ideas became associated with non-Brahmanical trends, especially Buddhism, and an attempt to impose the Brahmanical view of the world must surely turn its back on things Greek.

Islamic Alexanders in Southeast Asia

2019 ◽  
pp. 75-112
Author(s):  
Su Fang Ng
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Alexander The Great ◽  
Holy War ◽  
Dominant Theme ◽  
East And West ◽  
Alexander Romance

This chapter explores the ways in which Malay Alexander romances redeploy a medieval discourse of holy war to frame contemporary conflicts. The discussion focuses on the Malay Alexander Romance, Hikayat Iskandar Zulkarnain (Romance of Alexander the Two-Horned), which features a universal sovereign who united East and West. The chapter reads Hikayat Iskandar Zulkarnain in the context of the Portuguese conquest of Melaka and considers how it represents global Islam—and its dominant theme of strangers converted to kin. It also examines how a religious empire is gained by technology in the novel, along with the text’s moral critiques of empire. Finally, it analyses the chronicle of Melaka, Sejarah Melayu (Malay Annals), its emphasis on the assimilability of outsiders in translatio imperii, its appropriation of Alexander the Great, and how it defines empire as translated from elsewhere by Alexandrian figures embodying “stranger sovereignty.”

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