Troilus and Criseyde (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

By Geoffrey Chaucer, Andrea Denny - Brown and Walter W. Skeat

This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading.  Love. War. Sex. Betrayal. And finally: a hero's violent end. Chaucer's masterwork Troilus and Criseyde is an epic with the inner turmoil of medieval romance, a tragedy with comedic self-reflection. The story tells of two lovers: Troilus, a young Trojan hero, and Criseyde, the beautiful widow with whom he falls desperately and dramatically in love.

The fate of this love seems to be controlled by various self-serving forces-from Criseyde's pandering uncle, to the political machinations of the war-yet the central theme upon which this text­­ hinges is the degree of Criseyde's own culpability in her change of heart regarding Troilus. At the core of this question exist crucial issues regarding the position of the individual in relation to medieval society, to God's plan, to human history, and ultimately to the literary canon itself. Indeed, in the plight of the ill-fated lovers, and in Chaucer's inspired treatment of them, we can find a prototype of the star-crossed lovers in Shakespeare's later Troilus and Cressida and Romeo and Juliet.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Release date: Mar 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9781411467323

Reviews for Troilus and Criseyde (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

[shanaqui_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Yes, another reread of this text, my third this semester. I don't think I'm going to want to read it for a long time after this, lovely as it is. I just can't seem to get to grips with it well enough to do my essay, so I just marathoned it, alongside Shakespeare and Dryden's versions.

I read mostly for Criseyde/Cressida's character, this time. I don't know quite what to make of it, actually: she is so virtuous, and we see her in so much detail for the first part of the story, but then we see her betrayal only from Troilus' point of view -- when it seemed to me that she was the one who risked most for their love, and who was ready to put more into it. Maybe I'm too coloured by Shakespeare and Dryden, though.

(The actual edition I used was the Norton one, so my original comments on that still stand.)

[brakketh-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Very hard work getting through the Chaucerian language.