Dido’s story in the “Estoria de Espanna” by Alfonso el Sabio

https://doi.org/10.20339/PhS.5-18.050

Pastushkova Natalia A.,

Cand. of Philol. Sciences, Senior Researcher

at School of Advanced Studies in the Humanities of

The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; associate professor at the Department of Comparative Literature,

Institute for Philology and History, RSUH

e-mail: past_nat@yahoo.com

The paper deals with the analysis of Dido’s story represented in the Spanish chronicle of XIII cent. “Estoria de Espanna” by Alfonso X el Sabio. Considering that creation of this literary monument was based not only on the historical documents and texts, but rather on the literary ones, it is relevant to observe the kind of transformation they suffered, how they were correlated to real facts and characters; thus, we address one of the most important problems in the medieval literature — interrelation between fiction and history. During research, we found out that chroniclers had worked with different sources of Dido and Aeneas story. As a result, they had to compile and rewrite original texts. But at the same time, we see that two versions of Dido’s death are given in succession (and no explanation is offered).

Another important question is the elaboration of language of Spanish medieval prose, and to be precise — the literary language. Insertion of such fictional stories had allowed fiction and history to converge, and as result original Spanish literary works had emerged.

Keywords: Aeneas and Dido, Estoria de Espanna, Alfonso el Sabio, medieval Spanish prose, history and fiction.

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