Shakespeare and Chaucer: 'What Is Criseyde Worth?'

Published: Piero Boitani, ed. The European Tragedy of Troilus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 219-42. First published in Cambridge Quarterly 18 (1989): 109-28.

Description: Chaucer's dialogue, poetic "stage directions," and expansion of the wooing scene make his TC more "Shakespearean," or dramatic, than Shakespeare's treatment of the story. Chaucer's heroine is brilliantly drawn to show her inner movement from true lover of Troilus to faithless mistress of Diomede; Shakespeare's Cressida changes as her "value," determined by outside forces, changes with the conditions of exchange in war.; Chaucer explores the change in Criseyde as an aspect of humanity; Shakespeare sees it as tied to Renaissance and late-medieval economic thought.