When 'Remedia Amoris' Fails: Chaucer's Literary-Medical Exploration of Determinism, Materialism, and Free Will in 'Troilus and Criseyde'

Author / Editor
Palmer, James M.

Title
When 'Remedia Amoris' Fails: Chaucer's Literary-Medical Exploration of Determinism, Materialism, and Free Will in 'Troilus and Criseyde'

Published
Marcelline Block and Angela Laflen, eds. Gender Scripts in Medicine and Narrative (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2010), pp. 292-312.

Description
Investigates in TC Pandarus's attempts to cure Troilus's lovesickness, physically and psychologically. Pandarus's failure to effect a cure indicates that Chaucer rejects determinism and endorses free will, showing that Christian morals are incompatible with materialist cures for lovesickness.

Contributor
Block, Marcelline, ed.
Laflen, Angela, ed.

Alternative Title
Gender Scripts in Medicine and Narrative.

Chaucer Subjects
Troilus and Criseyde.