Читать реферат по английскому: "Fortune In Troilus And Cressida Essay Research" Страница 3

(Назад) (Cкачать работу)

Where does Criseyde fall in all of this? Is she representative of Fortune in Chaucer’s work? Salemi seems to think there are grounds for such an association, although he admits it would be difficult to maintain. He says that Pandarus’s role “as an advisor who tells Troilus about how to deal with a certain woman reinforces the suggested affinity of Criseyde with Fortune” (214). The narrator also makes the association of Criseyde with Fortune in the Prologue to Book IV. The narrator tells the reader that Fortune “From Troilus she gan hire brighte face…And on hire whiel she sette up Diomede” (IV, 8, 10). What Fortune has done is exactly what Criseyde will do. While this is a plausible argument on the surface, Criseyde does not seem so much to serve as Fortune but to understand her better than most. She has a firm grasp on the inconstancy of Fortune. Indeed, when Chaucer introduces her, the reader is struck by the fact that she does not blame Fortune for her sorrows. She is widowed, abandoned by her father and has had to throw herself at the feet of another in order to save herself. Even in the end, she merely bewails “the bitterness of worldly joys” (Jefferson, 126). She knows they can not bring happiness. And what is billed as her faithlessness to Troilus in Book V merely shows the acceptance of the hand she has been dealt by Fortune. The narrator says in Book V,

“Retornying in hire soule ay up and down

The wordes of this sodeyn Diomede,

His grete estat, and perel of the town,

And that she was allone and hadde nede

Of frendes help; and thus bygan to brede

The cause whi, the sothe for to tell,

That she took fully purpos for to dwelle” (V, 1023-29)

While it may have been Fortune’s doing that Criseyde is apart from Troilus, she understands at once the gravity of the situation she is in and takes steps to rectify it. This shows that she understand that the world is inconstant.

The theme of Fortune in Troilus and Criseyde springs right from the pages of Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy. This text obviously influenced Chaucer greatly. He drew from it frequently, almost casting his characters in Troilus and Criseyde into the roles in the Consolation of Philosophy. The result is powerful and moving for the reader. Chaucer’s audience could work through the same issues presented in the Consolation and see how the are dealt with in a classic story. And even today, modern readers can draw the same conclusions from this timeless tale of love and fortune.

Bibliography

Boethius. The Consolation of Philosophy. Trans. V.E. Watts. Penguin Classics. New York: Penguin Books. 1969.

Camargo, Martin. “The Consolation of Pandarus.” Chaucer Review Vol. 25 No. 3 (1991) P. 214-28.

Chaucer, Geoffrey. Troilus and Criseyde. Ed. Larry Benson The Riverside Chaucer.. Boston: The Houghton Mifflin Company. 1987. P. 471-585.

Jefferson, B.J. Chaucer and the Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius. New York: Haskell House. 1965.

Salemi, Joseph S. “Playful Fortune and Chaucer’s Criseyde.” Chaucer Review Vol. 13 No. 3 (1979). P. 285-307

Bibliography

attached

Похожие работы