Disembodied Laughter: "Troilus" and the Apotheosis Tradition: A Reexamination of Narrative and Thematic Contexts

Author / Editor
Steadman, John M.

Title
Disembodied Laughter: "Troilus" and the Apotheosis Tradition: A Reexamination of Narrative and Thematic Contexts

Published
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.

Physical Description
xii, 178 pp.

Description
Studies the "flight episode," Troilus's laughter, and the location of the eighth sphere in TC "against the background of the apotheosis tradition [Lucan, Cicero, Dante, Boccaccio, and various commentaries] and the conventions of classical pneumatology [Stoic and neoplatonic]," exploring the thematic relations of the episode "with the poem as a whole and the epilogue in particular." Also considers relations of the flight episode and the epilogue with the materials Chaucer derived from Boethius's "Consolation" and adapted by incorporating them into a new context, focusing particularly on Boethian views of providence and the human condition.

Chaucer Subjects
Troilus and Criseyde
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations