Poetry
Book of Alexander
Libro de Alexandre
Anonymous · 1230
Synopsis
Great prodigies mark the birth of Alexander. Raised by Aristotle, who teaches him virtue and the justice of kings, the young prince is indignant to see Greece paying tribute to the Persian king Darius; knighted, he refuses this tribute. On the death of his father Philip, he takes the throne, subdues Athens, Thebes and Corinth, then crosses into Asia. Before his troops, he recounts the Trojan War at length to give them courage, before facing the armies of Darius.
Context
The poem, in cuaderna vía, a four-line stanza on a single rhyme proper to the mester de clerecía, has about two thousand six hundred and seventy stanzas and ten thousand seven hundred lines. Its date remains debated: around 1230 according to the broadest agreement, from the beginning of the century according to others. It follows chiefly the Latin Alexandreis of Walter of Châtillon, composed around 1180, which it supplements with the Historia de preliis, the French Roman d'Alexandre and the Ilias latina. Two manuscripts preserve it: one, which came from the library of the Duke of Osuna, bears the name of Juan Lorenzo de Astorga, the other, in Paris, that of Gonzalo de Berceo; the work is today held to be anonymous.
Who it is for
A very long learned poem, interrupted by digressions, to be read in an annotated edition; there is no French translation.
Prizes and reception
Longest poem of the Castilian mester de clerecía; the Real Academia Española published the critical edition in 2014.