Alessandro e Utopia nei romanzi persiani medievali

This volume deals with the figure of Alexander the Great and the significant role of his legend in Persian literature. An introductory chapter reconstructs the complex route of transmission of Alexander’s legend into the Persian literary canon of the Islamic era, explaining how the ‘accursed’ Alexander of the pahlavi texts was flanked by a new messianic interpretation, influenced by Christian and Jewish readings of the Greek stories, and his identification with Dhu’l-Qarnayn, the ‘Two-Horned’ semi-prophetic figure in the Koran. However, the main body of the volume is a study of the relevant episode of Alexander’s arrival to a paradisiac, utopian, place: a story which was narrated in different forms in almost all the languages of the literary tradition on Alexander. This work focuses on the treatment of this theme in three main Persian romances on Alexander: the section on the ‘Reign of Eskandar’ included in Ferdowsi’s Shahname (beginning 11th century), Nezami of Ganje’s Eskandarname (end of 12th century), and Amir Kosrow of Delhi’s Ayine-ye Eskandari (end of 13th century). In these three masterpieces of the masnavi genre, Alexander’s arrival, respectively, to a paradisiac garden where he listens to the oracle of a talking tree, to a blessed city inhabited by a community of wise men, and into the sea abyss where he meets a wise submarine people, constitute the final destination towards which the whole narrative plot flows. In the utopian place, king Alexander receives the last and clearest message about the limits of his power, and moves back to face death. Besides a complete translation of these episodes, together with the relevant passages taken from other important Alexander romances like the prose Darabname by Tarsusi (12th century) and Jami’s Kheradname-ye Eskandari (15th century), this volume reconstructs the complex web of various sources (Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic, Hebrew, etc.) that lie beneath these texts and their subsequent development. Moreover, it provides a series of cross-readings of the narratives, in order to investigate the cosmographic concepts involved, the ethical culture expressed, and the link with the fundamental theme of language and human communication. The story of Alexander and Utopia is presented as a key to the entire Alexandrian literary tradition: a deep reflection on the contradictory relationship between power and wisdom.