Fortune or Free Will in Chaucer's 'Troilus and Criseyde': How Fortune 'Pleyeth with Free and Bonde'

Description: Though medieval orthodoxy insisted on the reality of free will, TC presents three characters subject to fortune at every turn, perhaps because they are pre-Christian pagans. Troilus is a victim of fortune from the moment he sees Criseyde. Pandarus is similarly enchained, but achieves a kind of agency by taking up Troilus' cause with Criseyde, whose compliant nature he manipulates shamelessly. History itself is another of Fortune's agents as the tragedy unwinds.