Re-inventing Alexander: From Christian Warrior to Pagan Saint
Old Dominion University Abstract: In this essay I examine the appropriation of the Alexander legend by the Spanish author of the Libro de Alexandre to determine to what degree the poets creation of a new mythic hero successfully fulfills the ideal of the Christian medieval warrior. By examining the poets attempt at Christianizing the great warrior, I prove that Alexander retains his standing as a mythic figure: one who cannot be contained within a single ideological interpretation. RESUMEN: En este ensayo investigo la apropriacin de la leyenda alejandrina por el autor annimo del Libro de Alexandre para determinar hasta que punto esta creacin potica del nuevo hroe mtico cumple el ideal del guerrero cristiano medieval. Al examinar el intento del poeta espaol de cristianizar este gran guerrero, demuestro que Alejandro mantiene su estado como figura mtica: una figura que no se puede ser contenida dentro de una interpretacin ideolgica.

Martha Mary Daas

Most discussion of the 13th-century Libro de Alexandre revolves around two main controversies: the identity of its author and its inclusion in the category of speculum principi. Although the first argument most definitely informs the second, it is the latter that I will discuss in this essay. The concept of the mirror of princes in the Middle Ages calls for a text that is didactic in nature and for a fully Christian hero. On the first point, the Alexandre acquits itself nicely. The scope of the poems instruction ranges from moral and ethical concerns to questions of social and political responsibility. The second, however, proves to be a much more divisive concept. Scholars have argued for and against the redemption of Alexander at the end of the poem, and the poet, too, seems to be caught between his desire to redeem his prince and his inability to do so. The poet admires his subject and, therefore, conveys this regard to his audience. Alexander may not be a perfect mirror, but he is, at the very least, an exemplary figure.

ISSN: 1579-735X

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The question of christian redemption in the Libro de Alexandre (hereafter known as the Alexandre) hinges on the portrayal of the hero. but this portrayal, like the text itself, is unstale. The poet takes the reader on a journey through the transformations of the character of Alexander: from his auspicious beginnings as a seemingly perfect prince, to his untimely demise as a tragic hero. This path perfectly parallels the generic trajectory of the poem. Through the changes in genre, the poet emphasizes the evolution of Alexanders character. Although the Alexandre clearly begins as an epic tale, with a christian Alexander, it evolves into a romance and, finally, ends as a tragedy with the death of a pagan warrior. The beginning of the Alexandre is true to epic form. The epic, according to bakhtin, must contain three basic conditions: the heroic or absolute past, epic distance, and tradition rather than personal experience. The epic past is one of heroism and superlative events and is inaccessile to the reader as well as to the author who can neither evaluate nor opine on the feats of his hero. tied to this inaccessile past is the epic discourse that is far removed from contemporary discourse (13). The author of the epic finds himself in a subordinate position: he must revere the past as he narrates it, making no connections to the present. by using bakhtins theory as a guideline it will be easy to recognize the characteristics of epic in the Alexandre, and also when and where the poem begins to stray from its epic path. After the death of Alexanders father Phillip in the beginning of the poem, the young king begins to plan his quest to fulfill his fathers dreams of empire:

Ya contava por suya torre de babiln, Inda e Egipto, la tierra de sin, Africa e Marruecos, quantos regnos y son, Quanto que carlos ovo bien do el sol se pon. (88)
This strophe is one of many that demonstrate Alexanders youthful desire for adventure and his wish to impose his being on the world (Greene 16). This passage is also an example of political imitatio, a common characteristic of the epic. charlemagne (Carlos) is one of many leaders that this medieval Alexander strives to imitate. Alexanders aspirations for greatness consist of two main objectives, which are in keeping with epic goals. The first is his desire to put an end to the unfair tribute that the Persian king Darius demanded from Macedonia. In the beginning of the poem, Phillip had been appeasing Darius rather than doing battle with him. Alexander, however, feels that it is dishonorale to be subservient to the East. He sends this message to Darius:
Ide dezir a Dario, esto sea ana, que quand no ava fijo Philipo en la reina, ponile ovos doro siempre una gallina; quando nai el fijo, morise la gallina. (143)
The second goal is Alexanders desire to free christs birthplace from Islamic rule. The following passage reveals an Alexander who is more christian than pagan.
Es llamada por nombre Asa la primera; la segunda, Europa; Africa, la tercera.

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tiene el christianismo a Europa seera; moros tiene las otras por nuestra grant dentera (279).
Alexander begins his epic quest by entering into negotiations with neighboring Thebes. The poet sets the scene with a reasonale Alexander attempting to come to an agreement with Thebes through his ambassadors:
Mandava el buen rey a los embadores: Ferildos, non ayades dubda de tradores; ellos son nuestros siervos, nos somos sus seores, non escapen los chicos, nin fagan los mayores. (219)
When Thebes refuses to cooperate, the poet then emphasizes the bad deeds that Thebes has perpetrated on its neighboring cities:
Las gentes de las tierras todas al rey vinin maldiziendo a tebas todas quanto podin; de muy malas fazaas muchas le retrayn, enendido era l rey, mas ms lo enendin. (222)
A loody battle ensues and Alexander is the victor. The poet makes it clear that Thebes deserves to be destroyed for its treachery and evil deeds. since the poet finds unreasonale anger and greatness incompatile, he calls the Thebans resistance treason in order to justify Alexanders actions. Alexander is still the perfect prince, En ti son ajuntados seso e clereza (235a). The first major battle of the Alexandre follows the conditions set forth by bakhtin. The poet cannot inuence the events; he simply reports them as he knows them to be. His depiction of Alexander, too, follows bakhtins description of the epic hero as one who is completely externalized. He writes, His view of himself coincides with others view of him (34). It is only later in the poem that the poet loses his ability to be an objective observer and the character of Alexander becomes more complex. The first indication that the Alexandre may not follow what David Quint calles epic linearity is the so-called trojan digression. This re-telling of the Iliad comes early in the text and is reminiscent of Aeneass theatrical recounting of the same tale. both episodes are examples of ectacle that lure the poems heroes from their goals. Aeneass passion seduces Dido, thus accounting for the first major digression in the Aeneid. In the Alexandre, the digression allows Alexander to inspire his men, and to judge his own deeds in relation to Achilless deeds (Treatment 261). Although this section of the text provides a necessary connection between the Alexander (the medieval Achilles) and his forefather, the digression interferes with the main narrative. As Alexander travels eastward, the epic cedes to romance. David Quint writes that romance embodies the collapse of narrative (45). According to Eugene Vinaver, the romance relies more upon the way in which a story is narrated than upon the story itself. He sees a direct connection between the new style of bilical exegesis as practiced by Thomas Aquinas and the interpretive nature of romance (18). Whereas the epic is a mode that seeks not to enlighten, but to move and impress, the romance reveals a marriage of matter and meaning, of narrative and commentary (Vinaver 14-23 pasim).

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bakhtin writes that the epic is closed both to evaluation by its narrator and to the poets modernization. On the other hand, the romance not only eaks in contemporary tones, but also relies upon the art of composition to turn the epic tale of adventure into a romance (Vinaver 37). Alexanders immoderate ambitions undermine his epic goals. The poet reports that Alexander loses interest in his homeland, and in the well being of his men, in order to be recognized not only as emperor, but also as conqueror of the supernatural world. Ironically, the epic, which calls for emperor and empire, cedes its generic definition to romance, even as Alexander builds his empire and becomes an emperor. In the romance, the hero is lured into a world that is defined by falsehood, artifice and an evasion of reality. The ectacle of babylon whets Alexanders appetite for further conquest. The poet aly depicts his change in character: from youthful exuberance to mature desires of power. While the poet justified Alexanders destruction of Thebes by labeling the Thebans resistance treason, his destruction of Persepolis cannot be justified by anything other than his will to conquer. As Quint points out, the romantic hero is generally one who is interested in his individual goals, not in the building of community. Aeneas is self-eacing and willing to sacrifice himself in order to achieve the goals of empire (94). Alexander, although brave, is a self-interested hero. Whereas the epic hero and his quest are most often associated with Fate, the romantic hero and his quest are associated with Fortune. Quint writes that the Aeneids two great losers, Dido and turnus, see their lives shaped by Fortune (93). George cary, in his thesis on the medieval manifestations of Alexander, claims the substitution of christian for pagan ideas [which took place during the Middle Ages] necessarily involved the replacement of Fortune, that controlling force in the development of Alexanders character, by Divine Providence (81). Yet it is Fortuna and not Destino that shadows Alexander. In the early part of the poem, the wheel of fortune turns in favor of Alexander:
tovos doa Fortuna mucho por denostada, vo que eran neios non dio por ello nada; fue tornando la rueda que yazi trastornada, fue abriendo los ojos el rey una vegada. (895)

Alexander is cured of an aiction brought by ill winds (contrario el iento 887). Fortuna rules in favor of Alexander and his quest throughout most of the poem. Implicit in the idea of the wheel of fortune, however, is its inconstancy. At any moment, the wheel could easily turn against the hero. Northrop Frye writes that in romance, there is always a battle between temperance and intemperance; the temperate world is the natural world, whereas the intemperate world is the fallen one (201). Dido is Aeneass temptress and Armida is rinaldos. Generally, intemperance, in the epic and in the romance, is associated with women, sorcery and an easy life. In the Alexandre, Alexanders temptress is not a physical woman, but an allegorical one. Soberbia is the queen of the seven deadly sins (ella es la rena, ellos son sus criados 2406c), and Alexander succumbs to her wiles. His excessive behavior manifests itself in his quest for world domination without regard for his men or for Natura.

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It is in the fantastic episodes where romance finally yields to tragedy. Alexanders ascent into the sky and descent into the sea are examples of both pagan ectacle and mini morality plays. stemming from the same tradition as the exempla, the goal of the morality play was to oer the symbolic representation by means of allegory of nonhistorical events directly related to the moral lives of their audience (taylor 23). Dramatized before our eyes is Alexanders inability to recognize his own sins. In the course of a few lines, Alexander condemns soberbia in nature:
Las aves e las bestias, los omnes, los pescados, todos son entre s a vandos derramados; de viio e de superbia son todos entecados, los acos de los fuertes andan desafados. (2310)
Yet in the previous stanza, the poet tells us that Alexander:
Mand que lo dexassen quinze das durar, las naves con tod esto pensassen de andar; assaz podri en esto saber e mesurar, e meter en escripto los secretos del mar. (2309)
Jess caas explains that the irony of the situation makes it obvious that the poet deliberately added these digressions in order to justify Alexanders death (521n). Yet these scenes provide more than a mere justification. The goal of the morality play is to expose mans lindness to his own faults. This lesson is intended not only for Alexander, but for all who witness him as an unwitting actor in the morality play. Ivy corfis, in her article on the two fantastic episodes, writes:
The overreacher is brought down by God in the end: man must pay for his sin of pride, for thinking he could act as God himself. Natura, the divine agent, takes Alexander to task for his desmesura (2329c) and metes out his punishment and death (482).

corfis believes that the poet used these scenes in order to critique society without making ecific references to the present day (482). According to corfis, these episodes are didactic. Ian Michael, too, claims that these episodes are examples both of the poets didactic interests and his attempt at moralization:
Thus christian moralization is a vital part of the spanish poets reinterpretation of the classical subjects in thirteenth-century terms; for him, actions and events could not be neutral or indierent; they must represent good and evil, examples to be praised or condemned (Treatment 175).
These episodes act as a warning to the audience, but they are also examples of ectacle, which reveal a theatrical element that is the defining attribute of each digression in the poem. In the trojan digression, Alexander recounts Achilless historic battle in a juglaresque manner, to the delight of his men, por alegrar sus gentes. (332b). This theatricality is reinforced throughout the poem, and it is the ectacle of theater, including the Deus ex machina, that allows for the triumph of tragedy. In the final scenes of the poem, the classical elements of tragedy are present: hamatia, tragic guilt, tragic vision, tragic inevitability, transcendence and catharsis. Alexanders

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hamartia, that is, his inability to dominate his need for knowledge, is meant to reveal to the audience that the heros strength is his weakness. According to Aristotle, this incontinence, unlike vice or depravity, does not stem from guile or malice (battenhouse 213). Alexander is guilty of immoderation. to the exclusion of all other duties, he pursues his interests wildly. His end is as inevitale as that of any tragic hero. His aws provoke supernatural forces to plot against him and he is powerless to stop them. The author, too, is helpless when faced with Alexanders imminent downfall. This tragic inevitability is directly caused by Alexanders tragic or causal guilt. His actions, although wrong, are caused by what he believed was the right course to take. Therefore, he is not solely responsile for his actions. Aristotle wrote that tragic action is based on the neglect of reason. since happiness is attained through moderation and prudence, tragedy occurs when good people act immoderately: when they follow their imaginations without awaiting argument (battenhouse 213). At the end of the Alexandre the ill-favored winds finally low full force over his place of honor. The gods are against him and there is no halting the wheel of fortune. both Antipater and Jobas are called falso and trador. They are the agents of death, but they too have no control over their actions. The life of Alexander is in more powerful hands. It is Natura, the christian Gods spokeswoman, who must take charge of Alexanders death. Frightened by Alexanders hubris and greed for knowledge, she turns to satan for help. Unwilling to sacrifice his individual will, Alexander will be sacrificed by Gods will for the good of all mankind. Although Natura has been Alexanders champion throughout the poem, she finds herself, at the end, in an antagonistic position:

cueita me faz prender a m esta carrera, cueita es general, ca non me es seera; si fuere la menaza de Alexandre vera, non vale nuestro reino un vil caavera. (2429)
Natura is clearly aware of her duty to God and man, but is devastated by the thought of having to conspire with satan. It is tragic vision that allows for catharsis and the completion of the tragedy. barbara Joan Hunt defines this vision as a direct act of seeing unfiltered by ideology or philosophy. It momentarily suends the protagonists point of view in the cancellation of the self. This vision, however, does not relieve the pain that is experienced equally by the author, the reader, and Alexanders men. For all of the poets eorts, he is unale to reverse the final outcome. The poet exclaims:
Maldito sea cuerpo que atal cosa faze! Maldita sea alma que en tal cuerpo yaze! Maldito sea cuerpo que tal cosa le plaze! Dios lo eche en lao que nunca se deslae! (2618)
Alexander, at peace with his situation, gives a final eech in which he parses out his empire and makes arrangements for his wife, his unborn child, and his burial. Alexander also makes a claim that simultaneously arms his pagan status and his lack of repentance:
ser del rey del ielo altament reebido, quando a m oviere, teners a por guarido;

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ser en la su corte honrado e servido, todos me laudarn porque non fui venido. (2631)
Alexander assumes that he will be given a heros welcome in the afterworld. but this afterworld is, most likely, a variation of the Elysian Fields, where it is not necessarily ethics, but conquests and greatness as a leader that allow free passage. Alexanders cryptic final words have inspired various critical interpretations:
ya lo ides veyendo, arrenunio el mundo, a Dios vos acomiendo. (2645cd)
Mara rosa Lida de Malkiel believed that the poet wished to redeem his hero at the end of the poem. Ian Michael, on the other hand, writes that Alexander is condemned to hell. He tells us that in stanza 2315 the author gives his reason for this condemnation: Here, from the christian moralists viewpoint, Alexander yields to the sin of pride, which in the Middle Ages was the worst of the seven Deadly sins and from which the other sins originally sprang (Attitude 208). Michael also believes that it is not the knowledge that Alexander acquires, but his attitude toward that knowledge that seals his doom (Attitude 209-10). redemption is the restoration of man to his pre-lapsarian state of sinlessness. Therefore, if we are to understand Mara rosa Lida de Malkiels redemption as a christian redemption, then Alexander cannot be redeemed. Alexander shows no sign of contrition, which is a necessary step to redemption. He does renounce the world, but this statement could be an announcement that the time had come to shake o the mortal coil. He commends his family and friends to God, but this Dios could be Fortune, or any number of pagan gods. There is no precedent set that Alexander is, in the least, a christian hero. The poet is keenly aware of the implications of Alexanders pagan status. He writes:

Non podri Alexandria tal tesoro ganar, por oro nin por plata no lo podri comprar; si non fuesse pagano, de vida tan seglar, devilo ir el mundo todo a adorar. (2667)
The poet does not confuse or conate his century and religious beliefs with those of Alexander. Instead, he makes constant references to christianity in part because of a desire to maintain a connection between himself and his audience. The discourse of christianity would be the common language. seen through a rigid christian viewpoint, the Alexandre teaches by bad example. The trajectory of Alexanders life leads him from lo divino to lo humano: from the rumors of his semi-divine parentage to his inability to understand his limitations as a man. In the text, however, we are also presented with a pagan understanding of Alexanders accomplishments. Marina brownlee believes that the poet created a balanced presentation of both the non-christian and christian perectives. she writes that the Alexandre is, in eect, a hybrid text which dramatizes as it were, the tension between the two distinct , value systems (264). It is true that the two perectives are represented in the poem. At the end, though, the poem has given way to Alexanders own mindset. In his eyes, and in

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the eyes of his men, the great emperor has reached the highest point a man can reach: God, or the gods, will be awaiting him to give him a heros welcome. This journey is the reverse of the christian path of enlightenment. Alexander begins the poem with strict moral (christian) and epic goals. He is single-minded in his desire to free the Greeks from their Persian overlord and free christs birthplace from Islamic control. As the poem becomes less focused, so too does the epic give way to the romance. The poet shows signs of his inability or his lack of desire to contain this unruly force. The digressions are more frequent and ectacle becomes more important. by the time Alexander has taken his voyages under the sea and into the heavens, the poem has made its last leap from romance to tragedy, from christian to pagan. The spanish poets medievalization, far from being an anomalous exercise in the retelling of history, is a fresh attempt at mythologizing Alexander. In lieu of copying his Latin source, the poet made Alexander into his own creation. by fashioning a new Alexander, the poet has produced a new mythic hero. Many of Alexanders character weaknesses are explained away in fits of passion against the sin of treason. by claiming the right of royal anger (ira regia), Alexanders greatest crimes against humanity, the destruction of both Thebes and Persepolis, are not implicit in his downfall. Alexanders death, like the tragic heros, is directly related to one sin. The fact that Alexander is a pagan does not prevent his canonization. It is the consequences of being a pagan, the inability to aspire to a higher christian ideal, which ultimately gets him into troule with Natura and God. Alexanders perseverance makes him a good general, but not a good christian general. The Alexandres generic transformation makes the poem dicult to define. One interpretation of the poem is that it relays both a christian and a didactic message. but Alexander as mythic hero could not serve as a purely didactic model. raymond Willis has noted that the author of the Alexandre considered himself the original compiler of a historic poem (78). Although he borrowed most of the poem from various sources, his unique manipulation of that inherited material classifies the poet as creator. His major innovation, aside from the elements of ectacle, was, of course, writing the poem in the vernacular. This element, along with the poets christianization of the text, gives the poem a nationalistic avor. The poet reduces the scope of his poem by allowing his poem to be identified by its language and its unmistakaly medieval elements. In so doing, the poet has written ecifically for a medieval audience. Antonio Gramsci wrote that the complexity of the socio-historical moment is reected in the art product. If we examine the Alexandre for signs of the times, we will come away with a greater understanding of the bigger picture. The debate over the ultimate redemption of Alexander is one that goes to the core of medieval religious politics. What is missing at the end of the Alexandre is any sign of Alexanders participation in salvation. His words prove that his intentions are not christian, per se, but simply appropriate for a pagan hero of his stature. The poet proposes that to be a christian meant to participate actively. Alexander, therefore, could never be a christian. The poet aly medievalizes this wild, no-holds barred, anti-estalishment figure. He is a warrior-saint in pagans clothing and an almost perfect scholar king. The poet leaves his audience in awe of this man. He is unale to inuence the ultimate outcome of the hero, but he does inuence how we receive that information. The poems closure is in doubt: the audience is

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to condemn Alexanders actions, yet we pity him. Instead of reviling him for his excesses, the audience hopes for his ultimate redemption. If this were a case of a strict interpretation of christian dogma, it would seem unlikely that there would be an attempt to make Alexander a sympathetic character. Like other works of mee de clereca, the Libro de Alexandre reects both church politics and the desires of the people. Alexanders journey from epic to tragedy, from christian to pagan, makes him more easily accessile. His desires and his untamed will are ultimately punished, but they do not make him less of a hero. In fact, it could be argued that the poet makes him more heroic by making him more awed. The admiration that the audience and the author feel toward Alexander reects an earlier tradition of hagiography: an admiratio rather than the thirteenth centurys imitatio. brigitte cazelles writes that early martyrs were viewed as superlative figures distanced from their admirers (2). Although it is clear that Alexander is not a saint, the presence of admiratio cannot be denied. As the poet writes in stanza 2667, if Alexander were not a pagan, he would be a saint.

Works Cited

Aoyos. Libro de Alexandre. Ed. Jess caas. Madrid: ctedra, 1995. bak, Mikhail. The Dialogic Imagination. trans. Emerson, caryl and Michael Holquist. Eighth ed. Austin: University of texas Press, 1992. baos, roy W. Shakespearean Tragedy: Its Art and Its Christian Premises. bloomington: Indiana UP, 1969. bo, Marina scordilis. Pagan and christian: The bivalent Hero of El Libro de Alexandre. Kentucky Romance Quarterly 30.3 (1983): 263-270. caas, Jess, ed. Libro de Alexandre. Madrid: ctedra, 1995. cay, George. The Medieval Alexande. cambridge: cambridge University Press, 1956. cas, brigitte. Introduction. Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe. eds. blumenfeld-Kosinski, renate and timea szell. Ithaca: cornell UP, 1991. cofs, Ivy. Libro de Alexandre: Fantastic Didacticism. Hispanic Review 62 (1994): 477-486. cs rfs, Quintus. The History of Alexande. trans. John Yardley. London: Penguin, 1984. Fy, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1973. G, Thomas. The Descent from Heaven. New Haven: Yale UP, 1963. Hck, Waldemar. Introduction. The History of Alexande by Quintus curtius rufus. London: Penguin, 1984. H, barbara Joan. The Paradox of Chrisitian Tragedy. troy: The Whitston Pulishing company, 1985. Mca, Ian. Interpretation of the Libro de Alexandre: The Authors Attitude towards His Heros Death. Bulletin of Hispanic Studies xxx (1960): 205-214. The Treatment of Clasical Material in the Libro de Alexandre. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1970. Q, David. Epic and Empire. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1993.

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tayo, Jerome. critics, Mutations, and Historians of Medieval English Drama. Medieval English Drama. Ed. Jerome taylor and Alan H. Nelson. chicago: The University of chicago Press, 1972. 1-27. Va, Eugene. The Rise of Romance. New York: Oxford UP, 1971. Wa, Philippe. Myth and text in the Middle Ages: Folklore as Literary source trans. Ali. Nematollahy. Telling Tales: Medieval Narratives and the Folk Tradition. New York: st. Martins Press, 1998. Ws, raymond Jr. The Relationship of the Spanish Libro de Alexandre to the Alexandreis of Gautie de Chtillon. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1934.