Chaucer's 'Troilus and Criseyde': The Disease of Love and Courtly Love

Author / Editor
Heffernan, Carol F.

Title
Chaucer's 'Troilus and Criseyde': The Disease of Love and Courtly Love

Published
Neophilologus 74 (1990): 294-309.

Description
Considers the medieval medical views on "amor hereos" and Chaucer's descriptions of it, first in KnT and BD, then in TC. In TC 1, Chaucer shows Troilus as suffering from the lover's disease, to which the consummation of his love in bk. 3 is, from a medical point of view, no more than a cure. At the end of bk. 5, Troilus rejects earthly for a heavenly, pure love.
Revised in Carol Falvo Heffernan, The Melancholy Muse (Pittsburgh, Penn.:Duquesne University Press).

Chaucer Subjects
Troilus and Criseyde.
Knight and His Tale.
Book of the Duchess.