'Troilus,' Books I-III: A Criseydan Reading

Published: Mary Salu, ed. Essays on Troilus and Criseyde (Cambridge: Brewer, 1979), pp. 105-25.

Description: C. S. Lewis was right to emphasize Criseyde's timorousness. She is unambitious and moderate, and the cosy, unheroic situation in Troy in the first three books suits her well.; It is a slightly childlike and worldly situation--as contrasted with the adult and urbane world of the Greek camp. Though Troilus may be the titular hero of the poem, surely Criseyde is the more memorable and the more fully developed creation, and much of the strength of the Criseydan strain in TC comes from the peculiar affinity of Criseyde and what finally is not just Thesean man, but Chaucerian man. She and not the poem's hero may be the more profoundly autobiographical creation.