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05/03/2018 06:00 PM ISAW Lecture Hall
Photograph of Richard Stoneman

Plato's advice to Alexander:

Amir Khusraw's 'Mirror of Alexander' (1299)

Richard Stoneman

"Plato's advice to Alexander: Amir Khusraw's 'Mirror of Alexander' (1299)" introduces the poet Amir Khusraw and sets his poem in the context of the mirror-for-princes literature of the Arab and Persian Middle Ages. It considers the links of this tradition with the actual work of Plato, and also of Aristotle, and finds little direct connection. In the poem, Alexander visits the hermit Plato in his cave to obtain advice on rulership. Alexander is thus presented as a kind of philosopher-king, as much a Sufi and a sage as he is a monarch.
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