. Alexander the Great (356–323 B.C.), king of Macedonia (336–23 B.C.) and in the Middle Ages considered one of the Nine Worthies, became the subject of a fantastical biography by the PseudoCallisthenes in the 2nd century A.D. Julius Valerius’s 4th-century Latin translation of this Greek biography, as summarized in a 9th-century Epitome, was the principal source of the medieval French Roman d’Alexandre, a long poem resulting from a compositional process spread over most of the 12th century.
The earliest extant Old French poem was composed by Albéric de Pisançon in his native Franco-Provençal dialect (Dauphinois), in the first third of the 12th century; only one manuscript fragment, 105 octosyllables arranged in fifteen monorhymed laisses, survives. Albéric’s name is known only thanks to the German priest Lamprecht, who translated most (or even all; the life is unfinished) of Albéric ca. 1155. A generation or so later, ca. 1160, an anonymous decasyllabic poem in the dialect of Poitou drew on Albéric to give an account of the conqueror’s youth (enfances). To this were added two poems: the first, by Lambert le Tort de Châteaudun, narrates Alexander’s adventures in the East (Orient) up to his arrival in Babylon; a separate, anonymous, branch treats the hero’s death (mort). These three poems (enfances, Orient, mort) were combined, resulting in two manuscripts totaling 6,015 and 9,947 lines, respectively.
After another short interval, Alexandre de Paris, from Bernay in Normandy, rewrote the earlier compilation in twelve-syllable laisses (hence the term “Alexandrine”), adding a previously separate account of a raid on Gaza, the Fuerre de Gadres, by a certain Eustache (ca. 1155). Alexandre’s work is found in seventeen manuscripts; in the critical edition, the poem is arranged thus:
Branch III, the core of the romance, is composed largely of extraordinary adventures, including Alexander’s exploration of the depths of the sea in a bathysphere, and of the heavens, harnessed to a flock of birds. Dalliance with exotic and amorous—and dangerous—damsels is of course not lacking. The Middle Ages saw in Alexander the epitome of chivalry and the model of valor (prouesse) and generosity (largesse).
Alexandre’s Alexandre, like earlier versions, is a formal anomaly in medieval French literature; though composed in laisses, which are elsewhere used only for the chanson de geste, thematically the poem is a romance, treating the story of a single hero, from birth to death, and not a single episode or series of episodes in which the hero opposes what could be deemed societal enemies. The Roman d’Alexandre is thus much more an adventure romance than a biography, classified generally among the Romances of Antiquity because of its subject matter. Its oriental setting was to have an important influence on many Old French romances.
A number of poems were subsequently composed in the north about episodes of the hero’s career and are usually found interpolated into the Roman d’Alexandre text or at least contained in Roman d’Alexandre manuscripts. Among these are Jean Le Névelon’s Venjance Alixandre (last quarter of the 12th c.; 1,936 lines), Gui de Cambrai’s Vengement Alixandre (before 1191; 1,806 lines); the anonymous Prise de Defur (before 1257; 1,654 Alexandrines); the Voyage d’Alexandre au Paradis terrestre (1270–1350; 503 Alexandrines); and Jacques de Longuyon’s Vœux du paon (ca. 1312), with its continuations by Jean Brisebarre, Restor du paon (before 1338), and Jean de Le Mote, Parfait du paon (1340). An independent Anglo-Norman Life of Alexander was composed by Thomas of Kent. After 1206, the poem was put into prose, with a second redaction between 1252 and ca. 1290 and a third in the 14th cen-tury (total of eighteen manuscripts), with editions through the 16th century.
The Medieval French Roman d’Alexandre . 6 vols. I. Text of the Arsenal and Venice Versions, ed. Milan S.La Du. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1937; II. Version of Alexandre de Paris: Text, ed. E.C.Armstrong, D.L.Buffum, Bateman Edwards, and L.F.H.Lowe. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1937; III. Version of Alexandre de Paris: Variants and Notes to Branch I, ed. Alfred Foulet. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949; IV. Le roman du Fuerre de Gadres d’Eustache, ed. E.C.Armstrong and Alfred Foulet. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1942;V. Version of Alexandre de Paris: Variants and Notes to Branch II, ed. E.C.Armstrong and Frederick B.Agard. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1942; VI. Version of Alexandre de Paris: Introduction and Notes to Branch III, ed. Alfred Foulet. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976; VII. Version of Alexandre de Paris: Variants and Notes to Branch IV, ed. Bateman Edwards and Alfred Foulet. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955.
Gui de Cambrai. Le vengement Alexandre, ed. Bateman Edwards. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1928.
Ham, Edward Billings, ed. Five Versions of the Venjance Alixandre. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1935.
Jehan le Nivelon. La venjance Alixandre, ed. Edward Billings Ham. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1931.
Peckham, Lawton P.G., and Milan S.La Du, eds. La prise de Defur and Le voyage d’Alexandre au Paradis terrestre. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1935.
Thomas of Kent. The Anglo-Norman Alexandre (Le roman de toute chevalerie), ed. Brian Foster. 2 vols. London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1976–77.
Cary, George. The Medieval Alexander. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956.
Frappier, Jean. “Le Roman d’Alexandre et ses diverses versions au XIIe siècle,” and Jean-Charles Payen, “Alexandre en prose.” In Grundriss der romanischen Literaturen des Mittelaters, Vol. 4: Le roman jusqu’à la fin du XIIIe siècle, t. 1 (Partie historique). Heidelberg: Winter, 1978, pp. 149–67, and t. 2 (Partie documentaire). Heidelberg: Winter, 1984, nos. 20–32(pp. 75–80), 176(p. 119), 236(pp. 134–35), 304(pp. 152–53), 392(pp. 187–88), 492(pp. 213–14).
Meyer, Paul. Alexandre le grand dans la littérature française du moyen âge. 2 vols. Paris: Vieweg, 1886.
This is the complete article, containing 987 words
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page).
