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T.K

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I'm just about to start writing my proposal for my major work. the area of study i have chosen is along the lines of a comparative study of the king arthur legends and the histories of alexander the great (mainly using the alexander romance). do you think this topic is suitable or is it to broad?

also if anyone has done any research into either alexander or arthur for past or present assesment and has any decent sources relating to the two would you kindly share them with me?

thanx in advance
 
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xeuyrawp

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T.K said:
I'm just about to start writing my proposal for my major work. the area of study i have chosen is along the lines of a comparative study of the king arthur legends and the histories of alexander the great (mainly using the alexander romance). do you think this topic is suitable or is it to broad?

also if anyone has done any research into either alexander or arthur for past or present assesment and has any decent sources relating to the two would you kindly share them with me?

thanx in advance
Firstly, anything with King Arthur is unoriginal.

Secondly, I don't see how you can compare the King Arthur legends with the Alexander histories. They're totally different historical figures, the type of evidence is totally different, etc, etc.

'Comparitive studies' are generally lame, especially when they are comparing personalities.

If you wanted to do the topic, I'm sure you could do a search on this forum for 'King Arthur' (there are a tonne of threads) as well as search the Ancient history forum for 'Alexander'.
 

T.K

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well actually i was thinking of doing kind of "extensions of Homers epics throughout history" kinda thing, as you should know there are many elements of the evidence about alexanders life that have similarities to elements in the illiad, same with the story of arthur and alexander, i was considering discussing why the arthur legend was dismissed as myth, whilst alexander was adopted as "the great". incase you did not know there is next to no primary evidence that has survived about alexander, most information we have comes from sources written something like 800 years after alexanders death, pseudo-calisthenes and the like.

so do u still recommend steering away from the arthur scene? my apologies for not eleborating furthur about my topic in the first post. i appreciate your imput.
 
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xeuyrawp

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T.K said:
well actually i was thinking of doing kind of "extensions of Homers epics throughout history" kinda thing, as you should know there are many elements of the evidence about alexanders life that have similarities to elements in the illiad, same with the story of arthur and alexander, i was considering discussing why the arthur legend was dismissed as myth, whilst alexander was adopted as "the great". incase you did not know there is next to no primary evidence that has survived about alexander, most information we have comes from sources written something like 800 years after alexanders death, pseudo-calisthenes and the like.

so do u still recommend steering away from the arthur scene? my apologies for not eleborating furthur about my topic in the first post. i appreciate your imput.
Firstly, whilst Homer acts as a canonical text, he did not create any form of any genre. He didn't create the epic journey.

Secondly, Alexander tried to emulate Homeric tradition in his life -- Arrian says that he slept with a version of the Illiad under his bed.

Thirdly, there is a lot of primary evidence from the time of Alexander; Macquarie Uni has a few papyrii from Hellenistic Egypt.

Forthly, Arthur is dismissed as a myth because of basic intrinsic differences. Arthur's historical setting meant that nothing was written about him, because people did not write. There is so little evidence about him as a historicital figure, let alone a historical one, that society has simply branded heroic status on him. Alexander is totally different. I don't know where you got the 'we have no primary evidence' bit. Maybe you mean 'we have no surviving original copies'? Because, like many time periods (for example, Imperial Rome), many large texts have only survived from Monastic copies made from the 900s to the 1700s. Just because we haven't got 'original' copies means jack shit. Yes, there are confusions, like the 'Letter of Cornelia', but they are in the minority. Arrian's writings do have issues, but the fact that he based most of his narrative on Ptolemy and Aristobulus' work resonates in his reliability.

Arrian is not 'something like 800 years after alexander's death', he is a little under 500 years after.

Nobody has emulated Arthur, whereas you'll find that people still emulate the image of Alexander. It's a basic question with a basic answer lying in our preference and ethnocentricism -- medaeval history is neglected. End of story. The question of ethnocentricism is not a historiographical issue; it's a cultural one -- people prefer Classical history over medaeval history for a number of (valid and invalid) reasons.
 

T.K

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well ive only just recently started research and all for the project and started writting my proposal, so alot of the information i may have found may well b invalid, i hav not yet had a chance to visit macquarie uni although i plan to in the comming school holidays.

In order to undertake this project I have broken my area of study down into a series of smaller more specific enquiry questions so as to allow for the segmentation of the project into specific areas related to specific topics, and also to stop the lengthy digressions that could result in this area of study.
These inquiry questions include:

1. What influences does the time-period that the piece is written in have on the author of the text?
2. What is the purpose of the text being written?
3. How was the text constructed by the author? How reliable is the text and what it states?
4. What elements in the histories of Alexander display evidence of the elements that were included in Homers epics?
5. What similarities are there between the histories of Alexander and the legend of King Arthur?
6. What archaeological evidence is there to support the events claimed by these texts?
7. What is it about each of these texts that has allowed us to dismiss them as either myth or fact?

These are the main areas I would like to look at in my research and ones that have come up repeatedly through what research I have conducted so far. However they may prove to be too broad and due to word restrictions these questions are very much subject to change.

Thats the section of my proposal regarding my inquiry questions, wats ur opinion on these? sorry to keep bugging you about this by the way, i appreciate your help.

i have also mentioned in my proposal that the thing about Arthur would be no more then a digrretion to the main topic questioning the reliability of the histories of alexander, the greeks have been known to exaggerate things after all...?
 
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xeuyrawp

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Ok, well there are some good questions in there, but I think you can't write a mw about all of them.

I'd pick one or two related issues. Personally, I'd stay away from anything to do with Arthur.

How Alexander used Homeric tradition is a good question, I think :)
 

T.K

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As yet I have not yet formulated an overall question for my major work. Based on the research that I have conducted so far it will be something concerning the effect that Homers epics had on Alexander and his histories, arguing that essentially the Histories written by pseudo-Calisthenes and Plutarch are to an extent an extension on the poems written by Homer, with common thread running through both. I will also aim to question the reliability and realism of the Alexander histories.



thats an extract from my proposal, the conclusion kinda thing. wat do u think?
 

khandigirl

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I'm not necessarily the best person to comment on this one, but maybe i can help a little...

I wouldnt use the line of..... *hunts*

As yet I have not yet formulated an overall question for my major work.
as it sounds a little undecided... an excellent quote from my history ext teacher comes in handy here...

"if you have no clue as to what your doing, ask. If theres no time to ask, fake it and fix it later".

well... now seems to be a good time to use this:p just imo, maybe set it that that is your study... just lose the bit where you are unsure about yourself... maybe let the teacher know verbally that you are not 100% sure.... but eh....

thats my opinion... not sure if its worth anything... also depends on your individual teacher...

anywho... enough with my rambling... hope I helped a little
 

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