Browse Items (16472 total)

In Book 2 of TC, Criseyde gains subjectivity as a "reader" of Antigone's song. Although the narrator encourages female readers to "read like men" by identifying with Troilus, Margaret More Roper, in a letter to her father Sir Thomas More, aligns…

Considers the relations both between TC and Boccaccio's "Filostrato" and between TC and Henryson's "Testament of Cresseid," examining them, not as sources or descendants, but as psychoanalytic "neighbors," fraught with "unsettling desires."

Against the backdrop of two of his own studies exploring the classical roots of TC, Fleming argues that Chaucer subverts gender stereotypes and the force of literary tradition as much as he can by giving Criseyde a measure of agency and by depicting…

Considers issues of causality in TC as an aspect of the poem's structure and assesses the relationships of causation and structure to history and historicism. TC is more clearly recursive than its sources and is recurrently marked by the "Oedipus…

In TC, "Chaucer explores the cultural function of counsel as a key mode of power distribution in chivalric society," examining Pandarus's advice, Criseyde's impersonations of him, and parallels between personal counsel and the Trojan Parliament.

Like Perceval and Gawain in Chrétien's work, Troilus, Pandarus, and Criseyde in TC "embody various aspects of perception," vision, and knowledge; "they do so particularly through their portrayal as perceivers or readers" of their respective worlds.

Discusses the use of space and physical objects in TC, arguing that the poem's movements among exterior and interior spaces reveal how characters manipulate such spaces--and even furniture--to negotiate relationships with one another and to chart…

Hodges analyzes Criseyde's costume rhetoric, comparing details of her dress (and how it changes throughout the work) with mourning customs of late fourteenth-century England.

Chaucer resists the prevailing "lusty widow" stereotype in his depictions of the Wife of Bath and Criseyde, paving the way for more positive images of widows on the Renaissance stage.

Jost applies performance theory to key points in the narrative at which Criseyde seems to manipulate her words and her behavior self-consciously to achieve a desired effect.

Knapp examines how Chaucer makes Criseyde beautiful to his audience (then and now) and how critical readings of her character rely on cultural constructs of aesthetic beauty.

Mack examines public and private oratory in Book 4 of TC, exploring the emotional emphases that Chaucer adds to Boccaccio and focusing on the relationship between emotion and argument in rhetorical theory. Mack's essay tallies Chaucer's various ways…

Modern psychological analysis of the codependent personality reveals the enigmatic nature of much of Criseyde's behavior. Her drive to please and the absence of healthy boundaries in relationships with others indicate that she lacks a clear sense of…

In TC, Chaucer avoids focusing on war, revealing his awareness of its importance in perpetrating the aristocratic culture of his day, as well as his need to evade the expectations imposed on him as a writer. Conflict and the psychological disjunction…

Throughout TC, the words "sikernesse" and "fere" are repeated and echoed in other words that "complicate their apparently stable meaning." Thus, the "characters' fear of circumstances" cannot be separated from the "narrator's fears about the…

Olsen argues that TC is an effort to "use poetry as a spiritual instrument," specifically in an attempt to link "celestial and earthly loves."

Chaucer's interest in future contingencies (a problem raised by Aristotle) in part shapes the narratives in TC and NPT. The musings of Troilus and Criseyde about the future rely on Boethian principles (among others). Chauntecleer's theory--that…

Rust describes medieval epistolary protocol and assesses three features of TC in Bodleian Library Manuscript Arch. Selden. B.24: an appended colophon, a female figure dressed in black drawn inside the first letter of the poem, and the scribal…

A decade-by-decade evaluative overview of critical perspectives on Criseyde throughout the twentieth century.

Thirteen essays by various authors assess Criseyde in historical context, consider issues of gender and power, and apply postmodern approaches. Several essays revisit earlier scholarship on Criseyde (including the editors' own) and comment on current…

Revisiting his own "Chaucer and the Poets: An Essay on Troilus and Criseyde," Wetherbee argues that Criseyde is in many ways a more complex, mature, and heroic character than is Troilus. Troilus, the narrator of TC, and especially the narrator of…

ABC is intended not for private prayer but as a pedagogical "English-teaching" text. The poem's manuscript illuminations, visual imagery, and rosary-like structure reinforce the general medieval association of the Virgin with the education of youth…

Adams argues that the "discourse of gaming" underlies "Beryn" and its Prologue (a.k.a. "The Canterbury Interlude"), which offer "centralized regulation as a solution to the inequalities inherent in exchange and commerce."

Considers the inclusion of Gamelyn in early manuscripts of CT and the relative confidence with which scribes placed the tale. Given the possibility that some manuscripts predate Chaucer's death, he may have experimented with including the tale, even…

Edits four works ("The Boke of Cupide, God of Love," "A Complaynte of a Lovers Lyfe," "The Quare of Jelusy," and "La Belle Dame sans Mercy"), all except the "Quare" once attributed to Chaucer.