Armenian Alexander Romance by Alex MacFarlane
postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies, 2022
This article examines 30 kafas (short, monorhymed poems) about Alexander the Great and Darius III... more This article examines 30 kafas (short, monorhymed poems) about Alexander the Great and Darius III in a sixteenth-century Armenian manuscript. The anthologist of these poems drew from many hundreds circulating alongside and separately from the Armenian Alexander Romance to create a unique set, describing the encounters between the two kings and the turning wheel of their fates. In probing-and picking up-this process of selection, we can glimpse the multiplicity of Alexander, the malleability of his story, and wider ideas about fate that informed the kafas in this manuscript. Intervening in the kafas directly, this article presents a method of engaging with them, bringing medieval permissiveness and modern cutup poetry together to more intimately understand their mutability.
Armenia through the Lens of Time: Multidisciplinary Studies in Honour of Theo Maarten van Lint, 2022
This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the cc by-nc-nd 4.0 license.
Armeniaca, 2022
This paper examines the use of Middle Armenian in the medieval kafas (short monorhymed poems) ass... more This paper examines the use of Middle Armenian in the medieval kafas (short monorhymed poems) associated with the legendary history of Alexander III of Macedon in its Armenian translation. These poems, composed in Armenian in the 13th-16th centuries, contain classical and vernacular language. Examining the interplay between the poetic requirements of meter and rhyme and the linguistic features of Middle Armenian, this paper points to cases in the kafas where the choice between words and grammatical forms is dictated by poetry. This includes the use of both classical nominative plural ending-ք and the medieval (and modern)-(ն)եր, and the concurrent comprehensibility of the present and imperfect indicative both with and without the particle կու. Keywords Alexander Romance. Middle Armenian. Classical Armenian. Kafas. Xač'atur Keč'aṙec'i. Grigoris Ałt'amarc'i. Zak'aria Gnunec'i. Summary 1 The Armenian Alexander Romance.-2 Poetic Language in the Alexander Kafas.-2.1 A Note on Manuscripts.-2.2 Rhyming.-2.3-(ն)եր Plural Ending.-2.4 Use of կու with Indicative Verbs.-2.5 Giving a Reply.-3 Conclusion.
Iran and the Caucasus, 2022
The 17th-century manuscript M7709 (held in the Matenadaran, Yerevan, Armenia) includes an Armenia... more The 17th-century manuscript M7709 (held in the Matenadaran, Yerevan, Armenia) includes an Armenian copy of the History of the City of Brass, to which an unknown scribe has added short poems about Alexander the Great. This is the second of three articles that together present the Alexander poems of M7709 in full, with English translation, for the first time (see Part I in Iran and the Caucasus 25.4: 334-351), focusing on sixteen poems: the death of Alexander, and Alexander's confrontation with emissaries of Darius III. It adds commentary on the poems' relationship to the corresponding part of the History of the City of Brass on each page, proposing textual reasons why the scribe added the poems where he did. Across the three articles, this commentary delves into textual relationships beyond the pages of M7709, linking the Armenian History of the City of Brass, Alexander Romance and other texts and traditions, to show how this manuscript is situated amid wider networks of circulating literature. As a microhistorical study, it seeks to provide illumination into the macrohistory of medieval and early modern literature in and beyond the Caucasus.
Iran and the Caucasus, 2021
The 17th-century manuscript M7709 (held in the Matenadaran, Yerevan, Armenia) includes an Armenia... more The 17th-century manuscript M7709 (held in the Matenadaran, Yerevan, Armenia) includes an Armenian copy of the History of the City of Brass, to which an unknown scribe has added short poems about Alexander the Great. The first of three articles that together present the Alexander poems of M7709 in full, with English translation, for the first time, this article introduces the manuscript and considers the first six poems: the seduction of Olympias, and Alexander's encounter with plant-men at the edge of the world. It adds commentary on the poems' relationship to the corresponding part of the History of the City of Brass on each page, proposing textual reasons why the scribe added the poems where he did. Across the three articles, this commentary delves into textual relationships beyond the pages of M7709, linking the Armenian History of the City of Brass, Alexander Romance and other texts and traditions, to show how this manuscript is situated amid wider networks of circulating literature. As a microhistorical study, it seeks to provide illumination into the macrohistory of medieval and early modern literature in and beyond the Caucasus.
Transmitting and Circulating the Late Antique and Byzantine Worlds, eds. Mirela Ivanova and Hugh Jeffery (Leiden: Brill), 2019
Edited volumes by Alex MacFarlane
Trends and Turning Points: Constructing the Late Antique and Byzantine World, 2019
All interested in the late antique and Byzantine worlds, its historiography, scholarly constructi... more All interested in the late antique and Byzantine worlds, its historiography, scholarly construction, literature, politics, religion, and archaeology.
Reviews by Alex MacFarlane
The Court Historian, 2022
Congresses/Seminars by Alex MacFarlane
by Francesca Dell'Acqua, Associate Prof., History of Medieval and Byzantine Art, Anna C Kelley, Ivan Marić, Julie Boeten, Sien De Groot, Charbel Nassif, Carl Dixon, Sebnem Donbekci, Alasdair Grant, Michael Burling, Christina Armoni, Alex MacFarlane, Marcus Spencer-Brown, and Alex M Feldman 17th Annual Postgraduate Colloquium of the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies... more 17th Annual Postgraduate Colloquium of the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies 4 June, 2016
European Research Institute, University of Birmingham
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Armenian Alexander Romance by Alex MacFarlane
Edited volumes by Alex MacFarlane
Reviews by Alex MacFarlane
Congresses/Seminars by Alex MacFarlane
European Research Institute, University of Birmingham
European Research Institute, University of Birmingham