Courtly Love Conventions in Troilus and Creseyde Essay -- Troilus Cris

Courtly passionateness Conventions in Troilus and Creseyde From the beginning the reader knows that Troilus and Criseyde is both a romance and a tragedy, for if the name of the poem and the setting of doomed Troy are non enough of a clue, Chaucers narrator tells us so explicitly. This is a news report of The double sorwe of Troilus to tellen, ... In lovying, how his aventures fellen Fro wo to wele, and after out of joie2 This waxing and waning of Troilus and Criseydes ecstasy in love allows Chaucer to explore the different manifestations of love in his present-day(a) society, and what the costs of loving might be. In particular, Criseydes fear of love, and betrayal of Troilus love, raises the pass who is allowed to choose to love? Yet despite the readers foreknowledge of a tragical ending, Chaucers skill is in exploring this theme, while making the outcome of the story wait anything but fixed. He directs our responses and controls the narrative situation,3 so that we are in constant anticipation. One scene in particular strikes me as a powerful example of Chaucers ability to evoke this feeling of uncertainty and non-finite possibility suddenly coalescing into the next inevitable movement of the plot. In a relatively short passage in nurse II (lines 876-931) Criseyde makes the emblematic decision to love, despite her concerns about the power games involved with true or cultivated love. She wex somwhat able to converte4 her fears into love of Troilus. This scene is made up of what appears to be a simple convergence of four important elements Antigones song of true love, and her certain and convincing belief in true love (as inappropriate to mere passion - hoot... ...Cambridge University Press, 1986) pp. 213-226. This from p. 213. 4. Benson, Book II, 903, p.501. 5. Benson, Book II, 892, p.501. 6. David Aers, Criseyde Woman in Medieval Society, The Chaucer Review 13 (3) (1979), 177-200. This from p. 180. 7. Benson, Book II, 872, p. 50 1. 8. Benson, Book II, 874-875, p. 501. 9. Benson, Book II, 887, p.501. 10. Benson, Book II, 891, p. 501. 11. Benson, Book II, 894, p. 501. 12. Benson, Book II, 922, p. 502. 13. Aers, p. 186. 14. Benson, Book II, 922, p.502. 15. Benson, Book II, 930, p. 502. 16. Eugene Vance, Mervelous Signals Poetics, Sign Theory, and Politics in Chaucers Troilus, New Literary History 10 (1979), 293-337. This from p. 328. 17. Aers, p. 180. 18. Aers, p. 181. 19. Benson, Book II, 903, p. 501. 20. Benson, Book II, 890-891, p.501.