Troilus and Criseyde Books

Although I have not personally read this book, I was taught its content by the author. He is Head Of the English Department at Southampton University in England and is an absolute genius. He has a way of explaining the literature, drama and culture of the Medieval period in a way that is both clear and amusing. He brings the period to life and draws cross-historical comparisons which bring it right up to date. If you want to understand Medieval Literature, Drama and Culture, whether for study or personal interest, buy anything you can get hold of that was written by this man. Your money will certainly not be wasted. At the risk of repeating myself, he is a genius.

Often texts like this one end up being dry, boring writing that one must plod through in hopes of getting some insight that doesn't dissect beyond recognition the literature it is examining. Happily, such is not the case with McGavin's 'Chaucer and Dissimilarity'. Examining primarily Chaucer's works 'House of Fame' and 'Troilus and Criseyde', McGavin proceeds to draw comparisons and contrasts, including looking out toward the Pearl-poet and Chaucer's magnum opus, the Canterbury Tales.

McGavin looks at different devices, such as the imago, the similitudo, and exemplum. The imago he describes as being the literary equivalent of a painting such as that of saints, kings or even abstractions -- there is a recognition, but no true likeness for comparison, so the dissimilarity and similarity are both impossible to fully grasp in many ways.

With regard to similitudo, the uses of similies can be important in setting up dissimilarities for poetic or dramatic effect. McGavin says that Chaucer tends against the norms for use of similies, creating a give-and-take dialectic between similies and context.

Many works of writers of Chaucer's era, and in one possible interpretation Chaucer's work itself, are capable of being classified as examples of exemplum, an example or standard by which others, including real life situations, are to be judged. McGavin argues that Chaucer destabilises his characters and situations in key ways so that, while they might seem to be exempla, they in fact fail to be standards because of the key interplay of dissimilarities. Whereas in many cases of exempla, the audience are comparing their own lives with the work they are reading, This often becomes difficult with Chaucer's work,

McGavin states that 'reading dissimilarity is an activity which Chaucer insists upon at all levels of his mature work.' The understanding of this is crucial to deep, mature comprehension of the stories, the devices in the stories, the contexts, and the subtexts in Chaucers major works.

More work with the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer's most famous and widely-read work, would be welcome here. The book ends with a good index and a generous bibliography of primary and secondary texts.

Calabrese writes in a witty style that informs as it delights. This is a great book for students, teachers and anyone interested in Ovid's influence on the writings of the father on English poetry. Bravo!

Insightful, witty, and exceptionally well-written commentary on the complex nature of love and desire ("ernest" or "game"?) in Chaucer's time--and our own.

I have studied Medieval work quite profusely, and this is one of the most extensive and interesting works I have read regarding Chaucer. Brilliant!

Amazon seems to be including all the reviews of different editions and translations of Chaucer's "Troilus and Criseyde" on the same page. If you read the reviews here you will be very confused. Some refer to an original language edition (either the one made by R. A. Shoaf or Stephen Barney's Norton Critical edition), and some refer to a translation, at least one to the translation done by Nevill Coghill. The reader needs to pay careful attention to what edition is actually on the screen when making a selection.

If you want to read the original text, I would recommend Stephen Barney's edition. Barney is the editor who made the critical edition for the Riverside Chaucer, and his Norton Critical edition includes ten excellent critical essays in addition to Chaucer's poem, Giovanni Boccaccio's "Il Filostrato" (Chaucer's source), and Robert Henryson's "Testament of Crisseid." Shoaf's edition is also good, but twice as expensive, and it does not have as much contextual material. Coghill is a fine translator of Chaucer, and for the reader who does not want to tackle the Middle English he will provide an adequate experience. But beware: His smooth couplets sound more like Alexander Pope than the vigorous medieval writer he is translating.

Geoffrey Chaucer's fresh, but, sometimes very sentimental text tells the story of the brave knight, Troilus, a `slave of love', Criseyde, a realistic widow, and their go-between, the intriguer and opportunist, Pandarus.

For the idealist, Troilus: 'Next to the foulest nettle, tick and rough, / Rises the rose in sweetness, smooth and soft.'

For the realist, Criseyde: 'Am I to love and put myself in danger? / Am I to lose my darling liberty? / She who loves none has little cause for tears. / Husbands are always full of jealousy' / And men are too untrue /Or masterful, or hunting novelty.'

The sly intriguer Pandarus brings them together: 'Just as with dice chance governs every throw / So too with love, its pleasures come and go.'

However, the love between Troilus and Criseyde cannot blossom for political reasons. The realist betrays the idealist.

For Troilus (Chaucer), the fundamental question is: 'Since all that comes, comes by necessity / Thus to be lost is but my destiny.'
Was his fate ruled by predestination or was there only foreknowledge by God? 'To prone predestination, yet again others affirm we have free choice. To question which is cause of which, / and see Whether the fact of God's foreknowledge is / the certain cause of the necessity.'
Chaucer's answer is `determinism': 'And this is quite sufficient anyway To prove free choice in us a mere pretence.'

However, the priests are not his favorites: 'The temple priests incline to tell you this / That dreams are sent as Heaven's revelations; / They also tell you, and with emphasis / They're diabolic hallucinations.'

For Chaucer, 'Think this world is but a fair / passing as soon as flower-scent in air.'

This poem is not as strong as the Canterbury Tales, but it is a must read for all lovers of world literature.

Please be careful! Everything on this page gives you the impression that this is a hardcover version of Shoaf's edition of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. IT IS NOT - IT DOES NOT EVEN CONTAIN THE POEM. This is a collection of essays about the poem that is really only suited to Chaucer scholars. Don't make the same mistake I made. It should be subtitled - ESSAYS - or have some other clear description of the nature of the book. I can not evaluate the essays, because I haven't yet read the poem because of this mis-identification of these Essays with the Superior Shoaf edition of Troilus and Criseyde by Chaucer.

This is a great edition for the masochist literature lover who wants to attempt middle english text. The footnotes are well researched and the supplementary papers are great additions.

As to the actual story, it is a wonderful, if not a little too realistic, love story taking place during the Trojan war. It mixes Greek customs and period with Chaucer's life in the middle ages. The story confuses itself with middle age customs with ancient greek traditions, with some parts completely unable to be understood (as the footnotes can atest with the same difficulties).

A good edition for English majors, bad for the faint of heart.

Your web-page is misleading. It quotes, and the image displays, the Middle English original of the poem. The inside pages shown are from the Middle English edition. However, (and the modernized title should be a giveaway, but it wasn't) the edition on this page is in modern English -- a translation, not Chaucer's poem. You need to clean up this page, take away the Middle English quotations, state that it's a modern translation, and refer the prospective buyer to the actual, modernized edition -- which the buyer may or may not want (in my case I did not), with assistance in finding the actual Middle English masterpiece.