The Medieval Alexander.
- Author/Editor
- Cary, George.
Ross, D. J. S., ed.
- Title
- The Medieval Alexander.
- Published
- Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956.
- Review
- Cary's study of medieval Alexander the Great narratives remains the foundational resource for all further work on the subject. He traces the historical and legendary Alexanders, Occidental and Oriental, from ca. 200 B.C. (Pseudo-Callistenes) through the fifteenth century A.D. His comments on Gower's sources and uses of Alexander appear variously, in relation to multiple texts. He attributes "Alexander and the Pirate" (CA III. 2363-437 to Augustine ("City of God" 4.4), citing Gower's moralized use of the story (97), and elaborates subsequently, noting that Gower's moral is "the necessity of self-control," which, Cary suggests, Gower connects with an anti-war theme: "Alexander conquered all the world; he let his will go beyond his reason; but in the end he was poisoned, and what did his unreasonable wars avail him then?" (254). The Diogenes story (III. 1201-1330), which makes a similar point about following reason over will, Cary attributes to a source modeled on Valerius Maximus, but supplemented by another, "possibly from Walter Burley" (253-54). He notes that Dindimus' critique of Alexander (V. 1453-96) "is supported by the brief narration of the legendary story of Alexander and Candeolus" (V. 1571-85) in which both enter a cave where Alexander "felt the presence of the gods, and conversed with Serapis" 254); of Candace, mother of Candeolus, Gower gives a brief reference, "probably borrowed from the 'Roman de toute chevalerie'" (254). Gower "tells with evident pleasure the story of the adultery of Nectanabus" and comments "that sorcery did not help him or save him from death" at Alexander's hand (255). Cary finds "typical of the period that Gower has Callisthenes and Aristotle teach [Alexander] "Philosophie, Entenden, and Astronomie" rather than "fencing and fighting" (255). Book VII, Cary says, is "based on the Secret of Secrets" (255). [RFY. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 40.2.]
- Date
- 1956
- Gower Subjects
- Confessio Amantis
Sources, ,Analogues, and Literary Relations