ALEXANDRIA, OR THE FIRST INSTANCE OF MONSTERS IN ROMANIAN CULTURE
ALEXANDRIA, OR THE FIRST INSTANCE OF MONSTERS IN ROMANIAN CULTURE

Summary/Abstract: This study seeks to present the early presence on monsters in Romanian culture, beginning with the popular novel about Alexander the Great and his exploits in foreign lands. Although not very known and not quite part of literature, these popular stories derived from religious traditions, an important part of them apocryphal in nature, with the biblical tradition being important because it allowed new words into the vocabulary, words that described ancient monsters and were adapted into the language, as Oana Uță pointed out.The story is about masculinity regarded as a warrior code and alterity associated with barbarians, with unchardted territories seen as places for monsters that devour whoever tresspasses their deserted realms. From time to time, the text has mysoginistic undertones, but it has not influenced the rest of Romanian literature for a variety of reason, one being the lack of a university before the 19th century. However, it is worth nothing that this popular text is the first instance where the ancient myth of the Amazons appear in Romanian culture, as well as Pliny the Elder‘s monstrous races.

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