The Elements of Chaucer's "Troilus"
- Author / Editor
- Wood, Chauncey.
The Elements of Chaucer's "Troilus"
- Published
- Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1984.
- Description
- Asks for a "Gowerian" reading of TC--by which is meant "moral Gower," the poet of "honeste," married love. "What Chaucer Really Did to Il Filostrato" was to re-shape the story of the besotted Trojan prince as a warning to the inhabitants of "New Troy" (London) in the spirit of "vox clamantis" and writings of other fourteenth-century moralists, who saw the power of Venus as a major threat to the realm.
- Criseyde is blameworthy, not for her "infidelity" to Troilus, through her "carryings-on" with Diomede, but for allowing herself to become involved in an extramarital affair in the first place. Troilus is not "ennobled" by his love for her. The concluding section is entitled "Blind Fortune, Blind Cupid, Blind Troilus."
- Chaucer Subjects
- Troilus and Criseyde.