Re-writing Alexander the Great: Literary adaptations of Alexander's life in medieval England
- Author/Editor
- Girard, Karen Lee
- Title
- Re-writing Alexander the Great: Literary adaptations of Alexander's life in medieval England
- Published
- Girard, Karen Lee. "Re-writing Alexander the Great: Literary adaptations of Alexander's life in medieval England." PhD thesis, Stanford University, 2001.
- Review
- "Despite their immense popularity with medieval audiences, the Middle English texts about Alexander the Great have been little studied because modern scholars viewed them in isolation from their classical antecedents and their religious context. In this dissertation, I examine how classical and medieval authors adapted Alexander's story into different genres of various levels of historical fidelity for their respective audiences. My underlying argument is that Alexander's influence over his own legacy ensured that his life story became not only a powerful historical example to kings with imperial ambitions but a critical opportunity for these successors and their opponents to make ideological assertions about the past and the present. . . . In the fourth chapter, I examine how John Gower combines moralized episodes from different editions of Alexander's life to educate Amans in self-control in love and politics in his Confessio Amantis." [JGN 21.1]
- Date
- 2001
- Gower Subjects
- Confessio Amantis