Thursday, 23 February 2023

The Alexander Romance


Linked to the British Library exhibition Alexander the Great : The Making of a Myth, which is introduced at A medieval best-seller: the Alexander Romanceand which I referenced in Medieval Alexander Romance Manuscript - the marginal imagination the BL Medieval Manuscripts blog has a further post about the Alexander Romance. The text, with its wonderfully fanciful narrative of the life of Alexander the Great, is shown as taking on a life of its own, producing additional chivalric romances on related themes. The result was a medieval equivalent of modern television and film producing ‘prequels’ and ‘spin-offs’ of popular stories.

The splendidly illustrated post, with illuminated pages from the British Library’s Royal and Addnl. MSS and Bodley MS 264, can be seen at Alexander, Porrus and the peacock


No comments:

Post a Comment