The Winds of Fortune in the 'Troilus'

Description: Chaucer uses "the winds of Fortune" as a metaphor to organize the genre and to define the characters. Troilus' perception of Fortune shifts from the divine to Criseyde, assuring his fall. The narrator opposes Pandarus' attitude in accepting the inevitability of Fortune. The traditional tragedy requires the romance to end in the hero's fall, but the Christian narrator-historian effects a divine comedy in his approach to Fortune.