"ВО ТЕАТАРОТ НА СВЕТОТ" од Селест Бенџамин Трејси.
Macedonia – Theater of the World
Interview by Aleksandar Donski
“Recently American writer, historian and Latin teacher Celeste Benjamin Tracy published the novel “In the Theater of the World”, available on Amazon as an e-book Kindle edition, later to be available in paperback. Ms. Tracy is American of Spanish and Hungarian-Czech descent, teaches Latin in Westhampton Beach, Long Island, New York, and holds degrees in Latin, English and Education.
MS. TRACY, WHAT IS YOUR BOOK ABOUT?
In The Theater of the World is an ancient autobiographical novel about Alexander the Great during his adolescence. Alexander begins with a prologue in the Spring of 324BCE, introducing himself to the reader and explaining his purpose in writing his autobiography; he offers to the reader a question to ponder while reading it, later answering it in his epilogue dated June 323BCE, ten days before contracting the illness that kills him. “I view my world as a theater, and my acts are demonstrated holding both sword and scepter. I am on a stage…before me the audience of the world,” says Alexander in his prologue, launching the reader into his lyrical-style recounting of his youth from age thirteen to twenty.
He commands the reader to “Take from my reminiscence what you wish for I have withheld nothing, revealing all of my phases, light and dark, illuminating a selection of scenes and dimming others.” The primary reason why I wrote the novel was to inspire the teenage reader to strive and pursue their ambitions, be healthy and strong of mind and body, honor their ancestors and nation, and to take the good qualities of Alexander and emulate them. I hope a reader with prior knowledge of Alexander will ‘get to know him intimately’, and the reader knowing little or nothing of him will be inspired to learn more about him.
YOUR BOOK IS WRITTEN IN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL STYLE, NARRATED BY ALEXANDER HIMSELF. HOW DO YOU PRESENT THE HISTORICAL FIGURE?
I present Alexander experiencing his world through the lens of theater. In 328BCE Alexander is recorded to have said he believed himself to be playing for the theater of the world, thus I used his statement as the theme for the novel. He had throughout his very short life viewed his experiences and glories as theater, and performed his feats through the guise of his heroes Achilles and Hercules, who had become his alter egos. His perspectives, behaviors and achievements in adulthood may have evolved from behaviors and experiences of an introspective and intense teenage dreamer who imagined himself perpetually on a stage.
And so, I go to the early evolution of the historical figure, and portray him as a passionate teenager: bold and brazen, brilliant of mind, emotional, tenacious, physically powerful but with a non-specific ailment, impulsive, fiercely loyal, and in need of praise and love from his family and friends, especially from his father, King Philip II. I neither marbleize nor glorify him, but humanize him, and show him as a teenager of ancient civilization who is not so different from today’s adolescent. I immerse the reader in his world and in the significant traditions and culture of ancient Macedonia, having attempted to avoid anachronisms that would sacrifice authenticity.
HOW DO YOU PRESENT GEOGRAPHICALY THE WORLD IN WHICH ALEXANDER LIVED?
The geography of Alexander’s world is presented historically, devoid of anachronisms, identifying specific nations by their ancient, genuine names to maintain the continuity of the novel’s setting. Macedonia is Macedonia, identifying clans from Upper and Lower Macedonia, speaking the Macedonian language; Greece as the City-States, its districts and peoples as Achaea, Aetolia and Attica, speaking the Hellenic language.
As for the neighboring nations I refer to them as Epirus, Illyria, Thrace, Hesperia, Persia. The peoples of those nations I identify them as, respectively: Epirote; Illyrian and its northernmost tribesmen Autariatae; the neighboring Celtae; the Maedi and Thracians of Thrace; the Samnites, Romans, Lucanians and Bruttians of Hesperia, and Persians. Presently, a map is not provided in the novel. I am in search of an artist to commission to illustrate a map.
WRITTEN IN THE GENRE OF THE NOVEL HOW DO YOU RECOUNT THE EVENTS OF HIS YOUTH WITHOUT IT READING LIKE EXPOSITION?
Descriptively, applying the senses, and at times, lyrically, including my own poetry so as to show a poetic Alexander, and I invented a small number of scenes to mesmerize the reader. The majority of the novel’s foundation, however, is historical. I also inserted some of Alexander’s original quotations from his adulthood, believing Alexander to have held these perspectives in his youth and later applied them during his reign. The timeline of the novel includes such events as: the famous taming of his war horse Bucephalus, his three-year education by Aristotle, his regency and his first military engagement against a Thracian army at age 16, his major role in the Battle of Chaeronea, his exile and experience in Illyria (of which I embellish for resources lack the detail), his collusion with the Persian satrap, Pixodarus, and, concluding the novel, the assassination of his father, Philip II. Also, I expounded upon his friendships and included his first arranged encounter with a courtesan.
WHO ARE THE CHARACTERS IN THE NOVEL AND HOW DID YOU DEVELOP THEM?
I included historical characters and invented others, which I indicate in my Author’s Note. The historical characters in the novel are developed based upon their interactions with Alexander recorded by the ancient authors Plutarch and Arrian, and several modern authors’ biographies. As expected, limited documentation lends poetic license to a writer, and so, I invent some personalities and enhance others. I emphasize in the novel the certain characters, whose personalities I developed using ancient resources: Craterus, Lysimachus, Perdiccas and Hephaestion. Ancient and modern sources identify them as Alexander’s closest companions.
Each of them is portrayed as having a close relationship with him, however, of the four Hephaestion is presented in the novel to be Alexander’s spiritual soul mate, his ‘other self’, dearest among his friends, as Arrian entitled him, carissimus (Latin: most precious, most beloved); I believe Craterus to have been fidelissimus, most devoted. I imagine Lysimachus to have revered Alexander, and Perdiccas to have been Alexander’s closest before Hephaestion appeared, for at his death bed, Alexander gave to Perdiccas his royal ring. I devoted tremendous energy and time to ‘get into their heads’ so as to make them realistic and personal while respecting historical evidence.
Of the characters I developed in the novel, the most challenging for me had been Aristotle. Aristotle was the greatest cerebral influence upon Alexander. Resources indicate Alexander to have said that Philip gave to him life, but Aristotle gave to him knowledge, and so, I was compelled to show a teacher whose mind and methodology exceeded all, whereby spellbinding Alexander; a teacher who facilitated learning rather than dominating it, whose teaching was provocative enough to stir Alexander’s analytical mind, and whose personality was commanding but compassionate.
WHAT OF ALEXANDER’S DAILY LIFE, HIS SURROUNDINGS AND COUNTRY?
The natural world of Alexander is illustrated through his senses, and I labored to stir the reader’s senses: the scents and feel of the terrain, and the tastes, sights and sounds of his daily life. Though having never visited Macedonia, I tried to paint a mountainous, verdant, luxuriant, awe-inspiring, mysterious landscape that I believe to have shaped and cultivated his nature. I imagined him, his family, his companions and people to be highlanders, powerful and resolute, lover of horses and of nature, skillful in the toreutic arts, fortified by the natural environ, and strengthened by means of suffering from centuries of prejudice by the City-States and surrounding kingdoms, all historically based.
WRITING A NARRATIVE IN THE VOICE OF AN ANCIENT HISTORICAL FIGURE IS A CHALLENGE. HOW DID YOU MANAGE TO BALANCE HISTORY WITH CREATIVITY?
In referencing the Acknowledgment section of my novel, I indicated that “Twenty-two years of collecting information and acquiring knowledge of Alexander the Great was an odyssey of learning for me…my research experience, having begun in 1982, was a timeline of “should I” and “am I able to” write an ancient autobiographical novel about Alexander the Great. Family and friends throughout the near two-and-half decades encouraged, advised and educated me, and so, here it is, written to the best of my ability without intention to impress and aggrandize, only to inspire interest in Alexander the Great by means of introducing himself and beginning with his youth.”
