'Shall' and 'Will' in 'Troilus and Criseyde'

Author / Editor
Guthrie, Steven R.

Title
'Shall' and 'Will' in 'Troilus and Criseyde'

Published
English Studies 73 (1992): 481-92.

Description
In TC, "shall" and "will" are important "to the characterization and overall modal texture." Chaucer appears to adumbrate John Wallis's seventeenth-century formula that "shall" expresses the speaker's determination to perform the intended action, while "will" suggests the limits of the speaker's power to determine.

Chaucer Subjects
Troilus and Criseyde.
Language and Word Studies.