Literature and Sexuality: Book III of Chaucer's "Troilus."

Description: Contrasts the climactic love scenes in Boccaccio's "Il Filostrato" and in TC, considering details, omissions, emphases, and narrative perspectives to argue that Chaucer makes the scene "emotionally, and indeed sexually, more intense" without being voyeuristic. Chaucer elicits and forestalls the "moral skepticism" of his audience. His treatment of sex has "extraordinary breadth" and "portrays intense physical intimacy in its noblest and most fulfilling form."

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