Your opinion about the fame of Alexander

[David]

Hello everyoneIt is the second message I write on this forum, so I am kind of a new emerging fan of Alexander, and I apologize in advance if you judge my reflexion not relevant enough.I just want to share a point of view. As I said I am a new impassionned of Alexander's history. And the more I'm interesting in him, the more I discover his amazing genius and his extraordinary exploits, I think you'll be with me on that. Some might say Alexander is one of the top 5 human who changed and "made" the world and the history. I'm sure you guys come from different countries, I personally live in France and I am surprised, nearly shocked, to see how Alexander is unknown or more precisely "mis-known" by the population. Of course everyone knows Alexander The Great by the name, sounds familiar, but very very few could tell even roughly what he did, when he lived and which part of the world he was from. So my question is : Do you think Alexander is nowadays unfairly unknown by the wide audience comparing to what he represents ?
Does that bother you? Do you think it is revolting?
Oh... and Have you ever thought about this issue?? Or am I the only one?I'm pretty obsessed with this question of fame, I would really appreciate your opinions about it.Regards David

[marios]

Alexander is known only superficially by the general public in the west even in Greece and Cyprus where I hail from.He is a complete stranger to the the third world ouside universities.
Having little or no knowledge they tend to be neutral about their opinion of his achievements.
The exception of course is the greek world ,Greece, Cyprus, the greek immigrants to other countries, these believe that he is a great Greek and rightly so.The question in my mind is how universities, historians and thinkers make of him.
Half the books I read,from western contemporary authors tend to stress the negative aspects of all things related to Alexander, with Green the most vehement.
Alexander was no saint for sure but his achievements pushed humanity a few notches upward
(the Library of Alexandria and the museum indicating
only the tip of the iceberg)

[marcus]

Alexander, of course, wasn't responsible for the Library and the Museum. He might have planned to have them in Alexandria, but I'm not aware of any source that says they were his idea.You are right, however, that a number of modern scholars, such as Green and Bosworth, have adopted a rather 'negative' view of Alexander. But although I think they sometimes go too far, they are an important counterbalance to the idealisation that marked scholarship in the early 20th century. The world would be a dull place if there weren't room for debate, after all.All the bestMarcus

[jan]

Hi David,I am so happy that you have told us that Alexander is so unknown in the nation of France. That pleases me a lot.I believe that here in America he is known only to college students and to moviegoers whenever the movies will finally entertain and enlighten.His fame is pretty obscure in high school history classes as he is a part of a time zone that is too far removed from today to spend much time upon.Probably his fame is reduced to busts and posters. In other words, more good books written for the young should be considered by the worthwhile authors in the world.I have always loved Saint Antoine-Exupery's The Little Prince. A good book is the best to achieve fame today.

[ruthaki]

When my grandson was about 10 he put together a little book report about Alexander for school. (I have it). Perhaps it was his grandma's influence, although he lives in California, I live in Canada and we rarely see each other. But I found it interseting (and pleasing) that he should take on this assignment and do such a good job with it. So I am sure there are many others like him, young people, who know about Alexander. The movie is sure to stimulate more of this interest.

[neneh]

Hi David,I'm originally from Scandinavia and I would say the 'situation' there is much like what you describe, i.e. people know Alexander's name but not much more. When I did history in sixth form (or the equivalent thereof) he was mentioned briefly, but that was it.There isn't much written about Alexander in the Scandinavian languages, but I did find one book on the 'Beyond Renault' website (http://home.earthlink.net/%7Emathetria/ ... /list.html), called "Krigarens dikt" ('The warrior's poem') by Arthur Lundqvist. Whether this is available in English or not I don't know, but it's a quite entertaining book, so I hope it is.As to Alexander being 'unfairly unknown' I wouldn't say that he is. I suspect this might be a bit of a geographical issue when it comes to what people in general know about Alexander. Using Scandinavia as an example, people there are more likely to be able to tell you stuff about the Vikings than about Alexander. In Greece I expect the situation is the opposite.Then again, this will probably change by the merciless influence of Hollywood sometime in oh... I don't know... december this year?Kind regards,Neneh

[marcus]

On the other hand, there was also a Saga about Alexander. Now, I don't know whether the Swedes are as interested in the Sagas as the Norwegians and Icelanders, but there was certainly as much interest in the medieval Nordic world as there was in the Romance world. What, therefore, is the chance that children get introduced to Alexander through the Saga?Hmm, probably slim, on reflection. Ignore all the above :-)Marcus

[neneh]

))) Probably depressingly slim, yes. I couldn't tell you whether Icelandic kids might get introduced to Alexander through the Sagas, but the Scandinavian kids certainly don't.

[marcus]

Just out of interest, then... do the Swedes feel any affinity with the Sagas? As far as I know they were *all* either Icelandic (for the family sagas and many others) or Norse (for a very few 'kings' Sagas).All the bestMarcus(PS: I'm interested because I did my MA dissertation on the Family Sagas, so still maintain a great deal of interest - second to Alexander, of course)

[neneh]

Well, I wouldn't say that the Swedes feel any affinity with the Sagas at all, really. Just as you say, they're mainly an Icelandic phenomenon, with very few exceptions, e.g. "Heimskringla" which you will be familiar with, by Snorre Sturlusson who (unless my memory fails me) was born in Norway but moved to Iceland, which I guess would be the reason we connect him with the (Icelandic) Saga tradition(?).The Eddas, however, are more widely read in Sweden, presumably because they're two of very few written documents that deal with the 'old gods' (Tor, Oden and the rest of them), but the family sagas are of lesser interest.All the best,Neneh

[marcus]

That's what I assumed - thanks for confirming! :-)Now, back to Alexander (or Aleksandrssaga, or whatever it's called, he he)Marcus