Geoffrey Chaucer
Troilus & Criseyde
ENG 310A: T&C
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Geoffrey Chaucer:
BIO/HISTORICAL CONTEXTS
 Life
Dates
– b. ca. 1340-45
– T&C done ca. 1385
– CT started ca. 1387
 Relevant
Regnal Dates
– 1327-77 (Edward III)
– 1377-99 (Richard II)
– 1399-1413 (Henry IV)
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Chaucer Bio and Implications
 upwardly
mobile, bourgeois family
 civil servant
– royal esquire, diplomat, customs official, etc.
 “borderer”
-- living between worlds
– royal courts, commerce, other countries
 foreign
service for king -- esp. Italy
– exposure to other cultures, writers
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Troilus & Criseyde: Formal Overview
 Source
 Verse
Form
 Genre
 “Objectives”
ENG 310A: T&C
(ambitious ones)
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T&C: Formal Overview, cont’d.
 Source:
Giovanni Boccaccio, Il Filostrato
(“The Love-Flattened One”)
 Verse
Form: Rhyme Royal
– 7-line stanza, rhyming ababbcc
– iambic pentameter rhythm
(5 beats, x / x / x / x / x / )
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T&C: Formal Overview, cont’d.
 Genre:
Romance (definition)
– but with many classical epic details/ techniques
» invocations of Muses
» book divisions
» high style (incl. astronomical “machinery”)
» classical setting
» “send-ups” of Aeneid, maybe Iliad
 Ch.
playing off classical, canonical
literature and culture
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T&C: Goals and Major Themes
 Ambitious
Objectives
 The
Religion of Love -- fin amour or
“courtly love” (esp. Bks. 1-3)
 History
vs. His/Her Story -- focus,
character, and theme (esp. Bks. 2-4)
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T&C: Very Ambitious Objectives
 Classical
traditions explored
 Philosophical
 Interrogating
analysis thru literature
Societal Codes/Ideologies of
Love
 Developing
ENG 310A: T&C
Richly Developed Characters
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Fin amour (aka “courtly love”)
Worship of lady
 Ennoblement of lover(s) -- esp. man
 Secret relationships
 Deep (usually male) emotion
 Recurrent image/metaphor patterns:
– eyes/visual images & dynamics
– religious metaphors
 STILL PART OF WESTERN IDEOLOGY OF
LOVE (cf. popular song lyrics)

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History vs. His ’n’ Her Story
 intertwined
questions of focus, character,
theme, esp. in Bks. 2-4
 dual focus (big-picture history vs. close-up
individual stories)
 complexly motivated characters
 and so what?
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From Troy to London Town:
Medieval British History/Genealogy
 Meleager
(Diomede’s ancestor)
 Theban War (D’s dad et al.)
 Troy
Rome (Aeneas, Romulus/Remus)
 Britain (founded by Brutus, descendant of Aeneas)
“Arthur” (ca. 500-540?)
 14th-c. England
 later audiences addressed at end of poem

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Time and Trouthe: Theme in Structure
 Structure,
Narrative Tactics, Theme
– esp. Bks. 4-5
 ME
trouthe = MnE truth/troth
 Zodiacal and Seasonal Clues
–
–
–
–
–
ENG 310A: T&C
Bk. 1:23 - April
Bk. 2:8 - Taurus (May 3)
Bk. 3:90 - Cancer/Gemini (June)
Bk. 4:5 - early Leo (late July - early August)
Bk. 5:193 - early Leo to 2+ mos. (Sept./Libra+)
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Time and Trouthe, cont’d.
 How
long does the affair last???
 Linear
vs. cyclic time
– different value systems: idealistic/pragmatic
– repeated concerns/imagery appear in
Canterbury Tales
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Love, Fortune, Fate:
Philosophy, Image, and Theme
 Boethian
–
–
–
–
–
Imagery and Theme in T&C
esp. Bks. 3-5
cf. Consolation of Philosophy (trans. Chaucer)
wheels that “make the world go round”
“the ties that bind”
harmony, bonds, unity, bondage, (un)freedom
 from
philosophical advice to experience??
 (Eternal) Love as binding force of universe
 Final values placed on T’s and C’s loves??
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