Five-Book Structure in Chaucer's "Troilus."

Author / Editor
McCall, John P.

Title
Five-Book Structure in Chaucer's "Troilus."

Published
Modern Language Quarterly 23 (1962): 297-308.

Description
Argues that the "formal and thematic design" of TC--particularly its five-book structure--reflects the "ordered argument of Lady Philosophy" in Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy" and "reveals a new facet of Chaucer's concept of tragedy." Altering the structure of Boccaccio's "Filostrato" and inverting the "dramatic movement" of the "Consolation," Chaucer shifts comedy to tragedy by showing, through Troilus, humanity's "systematic submission to Fortune" and its "awesome consequences."

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