forum to express personal and original ideas. This
practice, of course, was not unique to women. Transla-
tors of both sexes recognized the usefulness of the
cover that translation provided: Radical, controversial,
or touchingly personal thoughts could be expressed in
translations, and if ever confronted, translators could
profess innocence, ascribing the offending material to
their sources.
See also CLASSICAL TRADITION, EARLY MODERN V.
RENAISSANCE.
FURTHER READING
Barber, Charles. Early Modern English. Edinburgh: Edin-
burgh University Press, 1976.
France, Peter, ed. The Oxford Guide to Literature in English
Translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Krontiris, Tina. Oppositional Voices: Women as Writers and
Translators of Literature in the English Renaissance. London
and New York: Routledge, 1992.
Joyce Boro
TROILUS AND CRISEYDE GEOFFREY CHAU-
CER (1382–1386) GEOFFREY CHAUCER’s Troilus and
Criseyde provides one of the richest, most lyrical ver-
sions of a much larger intertextual tradition detailing
the love story of Troilus, younger son of King Priam of
Troy, and Criseyde, daughter of the Trojan seer Calkas.
In Chaucer’s version of the narrative, Troilus, younger
brother to Hector, Paris, and Deiphoebus (of the epic
warrior legends of Troy), falls in love with Criseyde, a
young widow whose father has just defected from the
Trojan to the Greek camp. Troilus’s efforts to court
Criseyde are negotiated by Pandarus, Troilus’s friend
and Criseyde’s uncle (Calkas’s brother). Although the
two lovers consummate their love, ultimately an
exchange of prisoners results in Criseyde’s transfer to
the Greek camp, where she and Troilus can no longer
arrange for their secret trysts.
Chaucer’s poem survives in 16 manuscripts and a
number of fragments. He chose IAMBIC PENTAMETER in
RHYME ROYAL for its meter. Chaucer drew on various
sources for his version of this narrative, including most
prominently Benoît de Sainte-Maure’s Roman de Troie
(late 1150s), Guido delle Colonne’s History of the
Destruction of Troy (1287), and GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO’s
Boccaccio’s Il Filostrato (late 1330s). Chaucer’s chief
source is dramatic narrative. Chaucer adapts Il Filos-
trato freely, distilling Boccaccio’s nine-book structure
into fi ve books and, in the process, inventing new
scenes, developing his main characters more fully,
demonstrating more empathy for Criseyde than previ-
ous versions demonstrate, and deepening the philo-
sophical vision of the poem. Some critics argue that
Chaucer’s new fi ve-book structure and the poem’s
larger focus on exile versus return to the divinity point
to the infl uence of his reading of BOETHIUS’s The CONSO-
LATION OF PHILOSOPHY (Boece, which Chaucer was known
to be translating from Latin into Middle English during
the years he worked on Troilus and Criseyde). The nar-
rative develops as follows:
Book 1
Troilus sees Criseyde in the temple, is smitten by her
beauty (and Cupid’s arrow), makes a long, anguished
complaint about how to catch her attention.
Book 2
Pandarus goes to visit Criseyde to convince her to con-
sider Troilus as a lover. He urges friendship, though his
clear design is to see Troilus and Criseyde consummate
their love. This book is famous for Criseyde’s interior
monologue in which she contemplates the pros and
cons of loving Troilus only to be interrupted in her
musings by his return from battle in full marshal valor.
Her subsequent dream of the eagle suggests the com-
bination of terror and ecstasy she feels at the prospect
of loving Troilus. At the end of this book, Troilus and
Criseyde eventually meet at a dinner party at the home
of Deiphoebus, Troilus’s brother.
Book 3
After the dinner party, Pandarus schemes about how
he will arrange a meeting time and place for their con-
summation. He brings the lovers together at his house
(where Troilus is hiding in a small alcove) after pre-
vailing upon Criseyde to stay the night because of an
unusually powerful “smoky reyn” (smoky rain). Troilus
and Criseyde consummate their love. Dawn comes and
the lovers can barely part.
Book 4
Criseyde is traded to the Greeks in exchange for Anten-
or’s return to Troy. Chaucer explores the various levelsTROILUS AND CRISEYDE 441