Table Of ContentUNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL
DEPARTMENT OF ROMANCE LANGUAGES
NORTH CAROLINA STUDIES
IN THE ROMANCE LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES
Founder: URBAN TIGNER HOLMES
Editor: MARIA A. SALGADO
Distributed by:
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS
CHAPEL HILL
North Carolina 27515-2288
U.S.A.
NORTH CAROLINA STUDIES IN THE
ROMANCE LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES
Number 245
THE LIBRO DE ALEXANDRE
THE LIBRO DE ALEXANDRE
MEDIEVAL EPIC AND SILVER LATIN
BY
CHARLES F. FRAKER
CHAPEL HILL
NORTH CAROLINA STUDIES IN THE ROMANCE
LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES
U.N.C. DEPARTMENT OF ROMANCE LANGUAGES
1 9 9 3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fraker, Charles F.
The Libra de Alexandre: medieval epic and silver Latin I by Charles F. Fraker
187 p. em. -(North Carolina studies in the Romance languages and literatures; no.
245)
Includes bibliographical references (p.).
ISBN 0-8078-9249-1
1. Libra de Alexandre. 2. Epic poetry, Latin-History and criticism. 3. Lucan, 39-65.
Pharsalia. 4. Rhetoric, Medieval. 5. Narration (Rhetoric) I. Title. II. Series.
PQ641l.L32F73 1993
861'.1-dc20 92-56387
CIP
© 1993. Department of Romance Languages. The University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill.
ISBN 0-8078-9249-1
DEP6SITO LEGAL: V. 1.996-1993 I.S.B.N. 84-599-3308-3
ARTES GRAFICAS SoLER, S. A.-LA OLIVERETA, 28-46018 VALENCIA- 1993
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
FOREWORD········································································································· 9
I. THE LIBRO DE ALEXANDRE ITSELF ........................................................... 15
II. OVID, LUCAN AND OTHERS ....... ..... .. .. . . . . ....... ... . . . ......... ... .. . .. .. .. . . . . ... . . . . . ... . 71
Ill. }OSEPH OF EXETER AND GAUTIER OF CHATILLON .................................. 125
BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................... 184
FOREWORD
The study which follows is about the influence of Silver Latin
poetry on the Libra de Alexandre. It grows out of three great inter
ests of mine. The first, obviously enough, is the Libra itself. Genera
tions of students at the University of Michigan have had to endure
my manifestos in favor of that work. I have taught it and, more than
once, have read it for pleasure, as one would a novel; I hope I am
not alone on the latter score. The second interest is Lucan. Years
ago, a colleague at Wesleyan, the late Tom Tashiro, expressed to me
his own enthusiasm for the Pharsalia, but alas, it was not until I
started to read and study the Primera cr6nica that I came to know
that great poem first hand. The present book is certainly not an
apology for Lucan, but were my powers equal to the project, I
would gladly compose one. This most Shakespearean of ancient
poems does not deserve the second-class status accorded it by neo
classic critics and their heirs. We have all heard the tiresome recital:
the Pharsalia is brilliant in parts, but uneven, the work of a poet of
uncertain taste, too much given to bombast and rhetoric (we must
remember that for some critics and readers rhetoric is a vice).
My third enthusiasm is one which in some ways might better be
kept secret. It is for narrative theory. I am reluctant to make a dis
play of this interest for two reasons. First, quite simply, my reading
of the literature is spotty. Long years since I did come to know
something about Russian formalism, and I must insist that at vari
ous times I have read Barthes, Genette and other theorists with at
tention and respect. But for all of that, I remain a Sunday-supple
ment student of narratology. In the remarks that follow I think I
have saved myself from foolish utterance by keeping my analysis of
narrative simple. My second reason for not wishing to highlight my
interest in narrative theory is more complicated. My revered teacher
10 THE LIBRO DE ALEXANDRE
Raimundo Lida used to say that a critical theory should be like a
piece of scaffolding, expendible once the building is finished: the
actual critical performance should stand by itself, and the theories
and principles that made it possible should be kept hidden. Nowa
days this all-wise rule is observed hardly at all, but I would like to
be a partial holdout. I so wish especially because I mean the follow
ing lines to be read as a learned essay, a study in philology. To put
the matter less generally, I am designing my comments on the
Alexandre and other texts in terms I imagine might be intelligible to
their authors, as though the categories I drew upon to study their
works might be something like the ones they used to compose
them. If this is really what I am about, the fact that the whole pro
ject might have been inspired by Tomachevsky, for example, should
be of little interest to anyone.
At the heart of this study is the belief that formal patterns in lit
erature, devices of style, strategies of discourse, have a history, just
as do themes, for example, or genres. To many this conviction may
seem unremarkable. What is certain is that it is going to force large
parts of this essay into a very special mold. Much of what follows is
unquestionably going to be close reading, or practical criticism. But
if indeed a large part of this study is given over to micro-analysis,
that does not mean that my first aim is literary interpretation; my
procedures are certainly not Spitzerian, passing from things local to
things global, from the traits of style of the work to its total signif
icance. This separates my work from that of other students of the
Libra. Close readings of the Alexandre or of cuaderna via poetry
generally are not numerous, and as I say, many in this vein are quite
unlike mine in that they do aim at what could broadly be called in
terpretation. Thus, Ian Michael's now classic work, The Treatment
of Classical Material in the 'Libra de Alexandre', 1 and the admirable
study by P. A. Bly and A. J. Deyermond on "The Use of Figura in
the Libra de Alexandre" 2 are both essays in practical criticism
which marshal details of their text in order to establish certain
broad propositions about the nature and intention of the work as a
whole.
1 Michael, Ian, The Treatment of Classical Material in the 'Libra de Alexandre'
(Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1970).
2 Bly, P. A., and Deyermond, A. D., "The Use of Figura in the Libro de Alexan
dre," The Journal a/Medieval and Renaissance Studies 2 (1972), pp. 151-181.
