Book of Alexander (Libro de Alexandre)

Peter Such was Head of Modern Languages and Director of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme at Sherborne School. He is the author (with John Hodgkinson) of The Poem of My Cid and (with Richard Rabone) of Book of Alexander. He retired from teaching in 2011 and he now lives in the province of Córdoba, working as an educational consultant and translator. He continues to carry out research on the literature of thirteenth-century Castile and its political and intellectual background. Richard Rabone is a member of Merton College, Oxford, where his principal research interests are in the literature of Golden-Age Spain, with a particular focus on the reception of works from earlier periods.

Acknowledgements
Map of Alexander’s campaigns
The life of Alexander the Great – a chronology
Map of the Iberian Peninsula in the early thirteenth century
Events of the early thirteenth century

Illustrations
Alexander tells his troops the story of the siege of Troy
Alexander comes close to death after swimming in the River Cydnus
A eleventh-century map of the world
The labours of the months
Notes on the illustrations

Introduction

1. The distinctiveness of the Libro de Alexandre
2. A novel enterprise: the poet’s ‘manifesto’
3. The manuscripts and the questions of date and authorship
4. Spain in the early thirteenth century: the background to the composition of the Libro de Alexandre
5. Alexander the Great in history and in literary tradition: our poet’s sources
6. Style and structure: the poet finds his voice
7. Warriors, kings and scholars – triumph but humility: the themes of the Libro de Alexandre
8. The Libro de Alexandre: a synopsis
9. The Spanish text
10. The translation

Select Bibliography

The Libro de Alexandre: text, translation and notes