The Birth of Criseyde--An Exemplary Triangle: 'Classical' Troilus and the Question of Love at the Anglo-Norman Court

Author / Editor
Antonelli, Roberto.

Title
The Birth of Criseyde--An Exemplary Triangle: 'Classical' Troilus and the Question of Love at the Anglo-Norman Court

Published
Piero Boitani, ed. The European Tragedy of Troilus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 21-48.

Description
Compares the treatment of love in the "Roman de Thebes," "Brut," and "Eneas" to that in Benoit's "Roman de Troie," a twelfth-century romance and apparently the first work to introduce Briseis-Cressida. A product of Anglo-Norman love debate, Benoit's Briseis is more a complex, contradictory character than a negative exemplum. Later writers, including Guido and Boccaccio, emphasize her negative aspects and inconstancy.

Alternative Title
The European Tragedy of Troilus.

Chaucer Subjects
Troilus and Criseyde.
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations.