HC 102H, Honors College World Literature

Troilus and Criseyde: a start

Major titles in the Troy story (remember, the events of Troy are thought to have occurred somewhere around 1200 BC)

• 800 BC, Homer's Iliad
• 4th century AD, Dictys of Crete (Cretensis), Ephemeridos belli Troiani (stories of the Trojan War), in Latin
• 6th century AD, Dares the Phrygian (Phrygius), De excidio Troiae historia (history of the Trojan War), in Latin: "Probably Dares and certainly Dictys were translated from Greek originals of the first century AD" (The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benson, 1987, p. 1021)
• c. 1160, Benoit de Sainte-Maure, Roman de Troie, in Old French: the first to link Troilus with a lover, Briseida
• completed 1287, Guido delle Colonne, Historia destructionis Troiae, in Latin
• late 1330's, Giovanni Boccaccio, Il Filostrato ("the one prostrated by love"), in Italian, Chaucer's main source: uses Benoit but adds Pandarus (cousin, rather than uncle), and compares his (Boccaccio's) sufferings to Troilus's (Troilus doesn't suffer after Briseida leaves in Benoit)

Dante's Vita Nuova details his love of Beatrice paralleled to his becoming a poet. As such, it is a retrospective work that nevertheless attempts to replicate the growth, direction, change, and eventual divinity of Dante's love. Troilus and Criseyde is one of Chaucer's finished poems (the Canterbury Tales are unfinished) and was written in his middle age. Still, it's useful to compare love in La Vita Nuova and Troilus and Criseyde. Notice the importance of dreams to both; notice Troilus's first sight of Criseyde (and contrast it to Criseyde's of Troilus--perhaps one of the most compelling differences between the two poems is the voice of Criseyde).

Chaucer's attachment to the Italian vernacular poets (he was sent to Italy on diplomatic missions twice in his younger years)--Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio--appears in his poetry as well as in the shape of his poetic career, in both of which he imitated their work and their politics. But this adoration of the Italians is further affected by the aspirations of Chaucer's London. There was actually a move afoot in the late 1400's to rename London Troynovant (New Troy). Chaucer knows he is dealing with very weighty material here, and he crafts Troilus and Criseyde as a complicated statement on love, loyalty, women, character, political service, intrigue at court, family relations, and the place of the poet.

The rhyme scheme of Troilus and Criseyde is "rime royal" (not that Chaucer called it that, but those who imitated him named it): 7-line iambic pentameter stanzas rhymed a-b-a-b-b-c-c. No small feat in English, and you might consult the original Middle English now and again just to get a flavor of the original. Click HERE to get to an on-line Middle English text: to find out what line you're at, multiply our stanza's number by 7.

Perhaps you'll agree with me that, while Criseyde is the most intriguing character (her widowhood was Chaucer's invention), Pandarus is the most open to analysis. What does Pandarus get from his actions? How is he important to the plot? How legitimate are his actions? What in the text alerts us to their legitimacy or illegitimacy? Check out book 1, stanza 142: Pandarus expects to make all three of them happy (in the Middle English, the phrase is "And so we may ben gladed alle thre"). How does this love triangle compare to the classic courtly love situation?

Something I'm struck by in the text is its subtle inclusion of "illegitimate" loves. Look at book 1, stanze 65, for instance: in describing Troilus's ardor for Criseyde, the narrator compares it to Troilus's love for his sister Polyxena or his love for Helen. You know what kind of trouble she was, and the absolute inscrutability of her motives. As a lover, she's both the ultimate and deadly. As for Polyxena, sisterly love is not supposed to be the same as romantic love: incest tabloos were quite strong in Chaucer's day, and rigorously guarded by the church in its marriage laws. Oedipus also shows up in Troilus and Criseyde (book 2, stanza 15). This catalog of illegitimate loves seems to me to point to something. Yet look at stanza 141 of book 1: because Criseyde is a beautiful, desirable woman, she's supposed to love a man, carnally (the word "appetite" is the clue). It is, after all, a man's world. What would Dante say about that? And, since Chaucer knew Dante's work and attitudes, what's Chaucer saying about Dante?

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This page created by Louise M. Bishop | Last updated 18 January 2000