‘Antique Authorities? Classicizing Poetry of the 1180s’

The ‘twelfth-century Renaissance’ was based on the rediscovery of classical texts and traditions, and inspired new works based on these well-known materials. However, the nature of many of these new works, often described as ‘classicizing poetry,’ has not been closely studied. This article considers two connected Latin poems – the Alexandreis and the Anticlaudianus – composed in the 1180s in northern France, in terms of their relationships with the classics and also with each other. Taking as its starting point the idea that classical reception could be a debated phenomenon (Mora), the essay argues that this is indeed the case, and that for these poems this debate concerns hermeneutic traditions rather than the classics directly. It concludes that the wide variety of poetic and interpretative techniques in the poems is an implicit sign of passionate interest and disagreement in the poetics of translatio studii during this period

‘“What shalt thou do when thou hast an english to make into Latin?” The Proverb Collection of Cambridge, St John’s College, MS F.26’

This article considers proverbs used as translation sentences, in the context of the teaching of Latin in the medieval schoolroom. Its enquiry focuses in particular on one folio of such latinitates, in Cambridge, St. John's College, MS F.26 (with further discussion of Cambridge, University Library MS Additional 2830). Its argument concerns, first, the question of what happens to the nature of proverbial wisdom when modulated from the (supposedly) oral, vernacular, folk context of its primary application, to the secondary (supposedly) written, Latinate, authoritative context of the classroom; when common, workaday wisdom shares the pedagogical page with Cato. Second, it extrapolates from this example to trouble the assumptions that still cling so tenaciously to this linguistic binary, arguing that presuppositions that Latin was not oral, vernacular, or homespun, or conversely that English was not written, authoritative, or bookish, are spurious. Finally, it considers the same proverbs that appear here as translation sentences when they are incorporated elsewhere into poetry, pondering the comparable ways in which that genre used them to construct authority, vernacularity, and orality

Rediscovery and Canonization: The Roman Classics in the Middle Ages

Issue 3 of Interfaces: A Journal of Medieval European Literatures explores the theme of the rediscovery and canonization of the Roman classics in medieval Western European literary culture, beginning in the eleventh century and reaching a wide impact on literary and intellectual life in the twelfth century. It is headed by an article by Birger Munk Olsen whose immense and comprehensive work of cataloguing and analyzing the entire record of manuscripts containing Roman classics copied before 1200 is nearing completion (L‘étude des auteurs classiques aux XIe et XIIe siècles, 5 vols). Within our journal’s scope of medieval European literature we have found it both rewarding and fitting to take Munk Olsen’s work as a prism for what is a striking literary phenomenon across most geographies and chronologies of medieval Europe: the engagement with the pre-Christian classics.The catalogue and the synthesis by Munk Olsen put many kinds of new studies on a firm footing. In this issue of Interfaces we present three 'frontiers' or types of scholarship on the rediscovery and canonization of the Roman classics all taking their cue from the meticulous way L’étude has charted out this territory

Medieval Narratives of Alexander the Great

How was Alexander the Great - controversial king, conqueror, explorer, and pupil of Aristotle, the subject of histories, romances, epic poetry, satires, and sermons in most of the languages of Europe and the Middle East - read, written and rewritten during the High Middle Ages? Aiming to illuminate not only the conqueror's history but also the fast-changing and complex literary landscape that existed between 1150 and 1350, this study considers Alexander narratives in Latin, varieties of French and English - the Alexandreis, the Roman d'Alexandre, the Roman de toute chevalerie, and Kyng Alisaunder - to address this vast and wide-ranging question. These important Alexander works are compared with the fortunes of other prestigious inherited tales, such as stories of Arthur and Troy, highlighting the various forms of translatio studii then prevalent across northern France and Britain. The book's historically appropriate focus on Latin, French and English allows it to take a multilingual and comparative approach to linguistic, literary and political cultures, moving away from interpretations driven by post-medieval nationalism to set the expansive phenomenon that is Alexander in its historical and transnational context

‘Passions and Polemics: Latin and Vernacular Alexander Literature in the Later Twelfth Century’

This article analyses two poems about Alexander the Great from the 1180s, the Latin epic Alexandreis and the French Roman d’Alexandre, suggesting that they are participating in an ongoing and passionate literary debate about how to perform translatio studii in northern France. Using a comparison of their tomb ecphrases as an example, the paper claims that the poems take opposing stances in this culture war. It also suggests that the conflict is not primarily between Latin and vernacular material, but transcends linguistic barriers

‘Absent Presence: Auchinleck and Kyng Alisaunder’

According to Chaucer’s Monk, Alexander the Great’s presence in the Auchinleck manuscript is unremarkable: "The storie of Alisaunder is so commune That every wight that hath discrecioun Hath herd somewhat or al of his fortune." For the Monk, Alexander’s story is an exemplum of ‘false Fortune’ despite his chivalric glories (‘of knyghthod and of fredom flour’). The use of Alexander as an exemplum is indeed ‘commune’ in late-fourteenth-century literary culture, as shown by contemporary texts like John Gower’s Confessio Amantis, in which Alexander (educated by Aristotle) is the perfect kingly ruler. Gower’s deployment of Alexander in this way is not an innovation, since the Macedonian is found as an exemplum throughout his medieval literary career. Yet not all treatments of Alexander are equally didactic. The ‘storie of Alisaunder’ found in romance material is a multifaceted weaving together of ethical and philosophical reflection, battle prowess, and marvels both Oriental and magical. As his legend develops from late antiquity, the common feature in the accreted narratives is variety, making Alexander and his story a complex phenomenon, based in history yet depicted in fictive literature from an early date, and ethically ambivalent despite the conqueror’s frequent extrapolation as an exemplum. The Monk’s statement that Alexander is ‘commune’ is therefore accurate only up to a point. The Macedonian hero may well have been ubiquitous, but his ‘fortune’ was not a single one nor always easy to interpret from an exemplary standpoint. Before individual narratives and witnesses are considered, Alexander himself, a hero-villain who occupies indeterminate territory between history and fiction, makes contextualizing his narratives a difficult business