COURSE SYLLABUS
This syllabus was developed and taught by Éloïse Adde, Baukje van den Berg, and Anastasiia Morozova at Central European University, Vienna, during the winter term of 2024/2025. The session on the Armenian Alexander (week 5) was prepared by Rok Kutner (University of Würzburg); the session on the Medieval Latin transmission of the Alexander material (week 7) was prepared by Katja Weidner (University of Vienna).
Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) is a hero who transcends time and space. During his short life, he proved a brilliant military strategist who conquered much of the known world. After his death, his fame only increased. Alexander is the science fiction hero who travelled to the depths of the ocean in a submarine or the warrior who built a wall to keep out the apocalyptic nations of Gog and Magog. He also embodies the wise ruler who benefited from the teachings of Aristotle, the true master of political thought, or the avid explorer hungry for scientific knowledge. From the very beginning of the legend, Alexander is constructed as a multi-faceted character who can be used in a variety of contexts. This malleability, which increased over time as Alexander became both a chivalrous hero and an example of piety depending on the period and the audience addressed, is undoubtedly at the root of the success of his legend. The figure of Alexander is omnipresent in medieval culture and appears in texts written in, among others, Latin, Byzantine Greek, Syriac, Persian, Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, Hebrew, as well as many of the European languages. Its importance was such that the translation of the Alexander Romance, falsely attributed to Alexander’s court historian Callisthenes, was frequently a decisive step in shaping or consolidating vernacular (national) literatures.
Situated as he is between “universalism” and malleability, the figure of Alexander allows us to reflect on processes of identity construction and literary reception, which often happen at the crossroads between imitation and singularization. By studying the reception of the figure of Alexander across the medieval period in various cultures and polities, this course aims to reflect on these tensions between shared heritage and singular uses. Moreover, in its different cultural, historical, and linguistic manifestations, the tale of Alexander opens a perspective onto a medieval world far more global and interconnected than is generally imagined. By focusing on the period from (late) antiquity to the fifteenth century and by covering a vast geography from Scandinavia to the Eastern Mediterranean and beyond, this course aims to introduce students to globalizing trends in Medieval Studies, including the study of medieval literature as world literature. It intends to stimulate cross-cultural reflections on a shared medieval heritage and, thus, to counteract nation- or language-based approaches to medieval literature, culture, and history by instead offering a vision of an entangled, plurilingual, and pluricultural medieval world.
By the end of this course, students will:
The course can be taken for a grade or for audit. Grades are determined as follows:
The second session of each week is intended be hands-on sessions, in which we enter into close dialogue with selected source texts. Students’ performance in those sessions will therefore not be graded separately, yet its assessment can influence the final course grade positively or negatively.
For students who take the course for audit: the condition for ‘Pass’ is preparation for and active participation in the classes.
COURSE SCHEDULE
This first session introduces us to the historical figure of Alexander the Great and the “original” Alexander Romance written in Greek, perhaps as early as the third century BCE. The text soon circulated in various versions, which later became the basis of medieval translations and Alexander traditions across the medieval world. To lay the foundation for later sessions, this week focuses on the historical facts of Alexander’s life and the earliest sources for the Alexander legend, as well as the Alexander Romance in its earliest Greek form(s).
Mandatory reading:
and:
or listen to:
The Rest Is History podcast, episodes 116 and 117(Alexander the Great part 1 and 2).
Optional reading:
Tutorial reading:
In the Christianisation of the later Roman Empire and throughout Late Antiquity, Latin- and Greek-speaking Church Fathers made use of the flexibility of the myths and stories surrounding Alexander to adjust his image to fit their Christianising rhetorical agenda. Through the reception of the Jewish and Classical traditions of Alexander, Christian writers appropriated Alexander as a figure well-known among the educated audience, making him integral to the Christian past and textual tradition. They presented him as “our king”, whose life path was predicted by the Old Testament prophets, particularly Daniel 7:7–8, and undertaken through God’s will. Apart from translations of the Alexander Romance, Alexander features extensively in Christian texts, as a literary topos in comparisons with Christians and as a part of the stories re-interpreted and rearranged from Classical and Jewish authors, most notably Flavius Josephus’ account of Alexander’s visit to Jerusalem. The absence of set positive or negative Christian interpretations created a range of patterns of thoughts about Alexander in Late Antiquity. This session explores the variety of these Christian Alexander(s) and traditions that contributed to such a variety to think about the ways in which the new cultural and social context shaped the Alexander material in the process of constructing and reinforcing a Christian identity.
Mandatory reading:
Optional reading:
Tutorial reading:
Against the tumultuous background of the Arab conquests in the seventh century, Syriac- and Greek-speaking Christian communities formulated various apocalyptic visions in which Alexander came to play a central role as the builder of a wall containing the unclean nations. When the barbarian tribes of Gog and Magog broke this wall, the end of the world would be initiated. The first account to extensively connect Alexander’s exploits, apocalyptic visions, and the stories of Gog and Magog is found in the Syriac Alexander Legend, which would exert a strong influence on later apocalyptic literature, including the ε recension of the Alexander Romance and the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodios, an important text for medieval Christian eschatological thought. Parallel to Christian apocalyptic views developed the Arabic Alexander traditions, in which the conqueror came to be associated with the figure of Dhu al-Qarnayn (“The Two-Horned One”) in the Qur’an, in line with broader perceptions of Alexander as a prophet of Islam and builder of the wall against Gog and Magog. This session explores this network of interconnected traditions to reflect on the role of specific historical contexts in shaping a central theme of the medieval Alexander material.
Mandatory reading:
Optional reading:
Tutorial reading:
The Syriac and Arabic Alexander material became the basis for the medieval Persian Alexander traditions, which—broadly speaking—combine two main strands. On the one hand, Alexander was perceived in a negative light as the greatest enemy of Iran, conquering its territory and razing its Zoroastrian temples; on the other hand, he was presented as a Persian king and hero, a knowledge-seeking adventurer and patron of philosophers, who could serve as a model for contemporary rulers. The Persian Alexander tradition thus shows how the reception of the conqueror’s story was not monolithic but polyphonous, with diverging perceptions co-existing within one language and culture. At the same time, Persian versions of Alexander’s exploits demonstrate that the received material was assimilated and conflated with stories of other Iranian heroes to turn Alexander into a hero meeting Persian cultural expectations. We will focus in particular on the Shahnameh or Book of Kings of Ferdowsi (tenth/eleventh century) and the Iskandarnameh or Book of Alexander of Nizami (twelfth century) as two key texts of medieval Persian Alexander literature.
Mandatory reading:
or
Julia Rubanovich, “The Alexander Romance”, in Romance and Reason: Islamic Transformations of the Classical Past, ed. Roberta Casagrande-Kim, Samuel Thrope, and Raquel Ukeles (Princeton, 2018) 25–47.
Optional reading:
Tutorial reading:
The Armenian Alexander Romance, known in Armenian as The History of Alexander of Macedon, is an Armenian recension (or version) of the Greek Alexander Romance (in its α recension) from the fifth century. It incorporates many of its own elements, materials, and narratives not found in the original Greek version. During this week, we will trace the origin of the translation and the development of the individual recensions that have come down to us. Our discussion will highlight their distinctive linguistic and stylistic characteristics, as well as the historical and cultural contexts that shaped their formation. Additionally, we will briefly discuss the significance of the Alexander Romance within the broader scope of Armenian literary history. During the tutorial, we will read and analyse selected passages from two Armenian historians who used Alexander Romance as a source, Moses of Chorene (Movsēs Xorenac'i) and Thomas Artsruni (T'ovma Arcrowni).
Mandatory reading:
Optional reading:
Tutorial reading:
from:
The current linguistic situation in Europe was mainly shaped in the Middle Ages. Yet this situation is the result of a long-term history, characterized by a long period of (to put it simply) diglossia: a learned/scholarly language, Latin, was used for the domains of religion, law, and the writing of official documents, while the various vernaculars were used in other linguistic domains (mainly orality, daily life communication). The twelfth century saw the rise of vernacular literature, considered a “literary revolution” in Europe. The first vernacular texts appeared on the continent as early as the eighth or ninth century, but such examples are rare and concerned mostly prayers and shorter texts. Interestingly for us, the figure of Alexander played an important role in the emergence of vernacular literatures in German, Dutch, Castilian, Czech and, to a lesser extent, Italian. In this session, we will analyze several European cases and try to understand Alexander’s role in this development.
Mandatory reading:
Optional reading:
Tutorial reading:
Jacob van Merlaent, Alexanders geesten, book 9, vv. 21–822 (compare to the Greek Alexander Romance, trans. Stoneman, book 3, 2–4).
German and Czech languages coexisted in Bohemia until a very recent period. Yet, the balance between the two languages changed over time. German had become the language of secular culture in the thirteenth century. Part of the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Bohemia started to attract the most famous Minnesänger and Prague became one of the most flourishing centers of German culture and literature under Přemysl Ottokar II (1253–1278). At the beginning of the fourteenth century, however, in the context of political troubles, Czech became the language of the dominating culture. The three Alexander Romances that were written in Bohemia for a Bohemian audience reflect these changes in terms of content, form, and language. We will discuss these transformations during the lecture and work on selected sources during the tutorial.
Mandatory reading:
Optional reading:
Tutorial reading:
This week explores the different contexts in which the Alexander Roman was transmitted in medieval Latin manuscripts, as well as the underlying dynamics of these material witnesses to the Alexander tradition. The second session of this week is devoted to students’ presentations of the topics selected for their final course papers.
Mandatory reading:
Tutorial:
Student presentations.
During the Middle Ages, universal history was the dominant historiographical genre. Covering the history of mankind from biblical history to the present day, universal history was aimed at the presentation of a history of all of mankind as a whole. The key features of universal history had been established in late antiquity: a universal chronicle commonly started with the divine act of creation and reflected a providential view of history throughout. Embedded in the ancient past, medieval universal history reserved a major role for the life of Alexander the Great and the history of his empire, presenting them in a new light in the frame of new contexts and uses.
Mandatory reading:
Middle Ages, ed. Michele Campopiano and Henry Bainton (Woodbridge, 2017) 1–18.
Optional reading:
Tutorial reading:
Alexander the Great was not just a conqueror, he was also an explorer. Part of the purpose of his Indian voyage was to discover if the Indian Ocean was an inland sea like the Mediterranean Sea or if it was an open sea that encircled a larger area of the world. The Alexander romances exploited these elements to educate as well as entertain. We will see how science, encyclopedism, and magic coexist in the Alexander Romances.
Mandatory reading:
Optional reading:
(Introduction).
Boundaries between Natural Magic and Necromancy, ca. 1230–ca. 1310”, in Medieval Perceptions of Magic, Science, and the Natural World, ed. Carolina Escobar-Vargas and Anne Lawrence-Mathers (Leeds, 2024) 107–124.
Tutorial reading:
Women and their relationship with Alexander were integral to the medieval reception of the Alexander romances. In all traditions, they serve as a medium through which Alexander’s moral standards or royal virtues could be signified. While women usually do not play individual or autonomous roles in the medieval Alexander romances, their stereotypical portrayals or even their shown independence help authors shed light on Alexander’s virtues and vices, constructing him as an example of good or bad rulership. At the same time, Alexander’s sexual practices or a lack thereof with both women and men defined the boundaries of masculinity for late antique and medieval elites, with virility and manliness being an essential part of the image of an ideal ruler. This session explores the ideals of masculinity and the ways in which they were constructed through Alexander’s sexuality and relationship with women in the medieval Alexander romances to think about how they tied in with the ideas about kingship, religion, and gender roles in different historical contexts and audiences.
Mandatory reading:
Optional reading:
Tutorial reading:
To close the circle, we are returning to the Greek tradition at the end of the Byzantine Empire, when the power of the Ottomans rapidly grew and a renewed interest in Greek literature blossomed among the humanists of Renaissance Italy. Alexander’s story had never lost its attraction throughout Byzantine history and new versions of the Romance were produced in late Byzantine times, reflecting contemporary historical circumstances. Parallel to Medieval Greek versions, Alexander tales in Ottoman Turkish circulated, predominantly based on the Persian tradition. Our material thus demonstrates how different Alexanders existed in contemporary cultural realms that were at once entangled and wholly separate. A late Byzantine version of the Alexander Romance, now lost, became the basis of the so-called Phyllada, a bestseller first printed in Venice in 1670 and repeatedly reprinted in the following centuries. Although the story’s outline is more or less the same, the new political and historical contexts imbued it with new meanings. It is the Alexander of the Phyllada that lives on in the imagination of many Greeks today.
Mandatory reading:
OR:
Optional reading:
Tutorial Reading:
Select general bibliography
Bridges, Venetia, Medieval Narratives of Alexander the Great: Transnational Texts in England and France (Martlesham, 2018).
Doufikar-Aerts, Faustina, Alexander Magnus Arabicus: A Survey of the Alexander Tradition through Seven Centuries: From Pseudo-Callisthenes to Sūrī (Louvain, 2010).
Gaullier-Bougassas, Catherine (ed.), La Fascination pour Alexandre le Grand dans les littératures européennes (Xe-XVIe s): Réinventions d’un mythe, 4 vols. (Turnhout, 2014).
Manteghi, Haila, Alexander the Great in the Persian Tradition: History, Myth and Legend in Medieval Iran (London, 2018).
Moore, Kenneth R. (ed.), Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Alexander the Great (Leiden, 2018).
Peltonen, Jaakkojuhani, Masculine Ideals and Alexander the Great. An Exemplary Man in the Roman and Medieval World (London, 2024).
Ray, Himanshu Prabha and Daniel T. Potts (eds.), Memory as History: The Legacy of Alexander in South Asia (New Delhi, 2007).
Stock, Markus (ed.), Alexander the Great in the Middle Ages: Transcultural Perspectives (Toronto, 2016).
Stoneman, Richard, Alexander the Great: A Life in Legend (New Haven, 2008).
Stoneman, Richard, Kyle Erickson, Ian Netton (eds.), The Alexander Romance in Persia and the East (Groningen, 2012).
Stoneman, Richard (ed.), A History of Alexander the Great in World Culture (Cambridge, 2022).
Zuwiyya, Z. David (ed.), A Companion to Alexander Literature in the Middle Ages (Leiden, 2011).
Let’s dive into the diverse literary heritage of the peoples of medieval Europe:
With our courses, you can embark on a thrilling journey through time and explore the fascinating world of medieval culture(s).
Explore courses
