Narrative Closure: The End of 'Troilus and Criseyde'
- Author / Editor
- Spearing, A. C.
Narrative Closure: The End of 'Troilus and Criseyde'
- Published
- Chap. 4 in A. C. Spearing, Readings in Medieval Poetry. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 107-33.
- Description
- It is not necessary to claim unity in the love, death, and heavenly reward of Troilus. Endings mark the boundaries between the work and the world (a central theme in modern social anthropology concerns boundaries or threshold crossing).
- Theories on endings advanced by medieval "artes poeticae" are weak, but Chaucer had models in medieval romances, which often ended in reconciliation or death of the hero. The complex and problematic TC ending is desired but delayed and is presented from a variety of viewpoints and attitudes, some contradictory.
- Alternative Title
- Readings in Medieval Poetry.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Troilus and Criseyde.