Troilus and Criseyde

by Geoffrey Chaucer, Nevill Coghill (Translator)

Overview

Often called the first great English novel, Troilus and Cressida, a tragic love story set during the siege of Troy, is Chaucer’s masterpiece. Troilus, a valiant warrior, is scornful of love until he catches a glimpse of Cressida. With the help of his friend and her uncle Pandarus, Troilus wins Cressida over. But their happiness is destroyed when, summoned to a Greek camp, Cressida seeks the protection of one Diomede and ultimately betrays Troilus.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780140442397
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/30/1971
Series:	Penguin Classics Series
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.76(h) x 0.82(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Geoffrey Chaucer was born in London, the son of a wine-merchant, in about 1342, and as he spent his life in royal government service his career happens to be unusually well documented. By 1357 Chaucer was a page to the wife of Prince Lionel, second son of Edward III, and it was while in the prince's service that Chaucer was ransomed when captured during the English campaign in France in 1359-60. Chaucer's wife Philippa, whom he married c. 1365, was the sister of Katherine Swynford, the mistress (c. 1370) and third wife (1396) of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, whose first wife Blanche (d. 1368) is commemorated in Chaucer's ealrist major poem, The Book of the Duchess.

From 1374 Chaucer worked as controller of customs on wool in the port of London, but between 1366 and 1378 he made a number of trips abroad on official business, including two trips to Italy in 1372-3 and 1378. The influence of Chaucer's encounter with Italian literature is felt in the poems he wrote in the late 1370's and early 1380s – The House of Fame, The Parliament of Fowls and a version of The Knight's Tale – and finds its fullest expression in Troilus and Criseyde.

In 1386 Chaucer was member of parliament for Kent, but in the same year he resigned his customs post, although in 1389 he was appointed Clerk of the King's Works (resigning in 1391). After finishing Troilus and his translation into English prose of Boethius' De consolatione philosophiae, Chaucer started his Legend of Good Women. In the 1390s he worked on his most ambitious project, The Canterbury Tales, which remained unfinished at his death. In 1399 Chaucer leased a house in the precincts of Westminster Abbey but died in 1400 and was buried in the Abbey.
Nevill Coghill (1899–1980) held many appointments at Oxford University. His translation of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde is also published by Penguin Classics.

 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Geoffrey Chaucer: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text

Troilus and Criseyde

• Book I
  Book II
  Book III
  Book IV
  Book V

Glossarial Index of Characters in Troilus and Criseyde
Glossary

Appendix A: The Story of Troilus and Criseyde

1. From Benoît de Sainte-Maure, Le Roman de Troie (1160)
2. From Giovanni Boccaccio, Il Filostrato (1335–40)
3. Robert Henryson, The Testament of Cresseid (1532)

Appendix B: Other Influential Literature

1. From Ovid, Metamorphoses (7 CE)
2. From Ovid, Ars Amatoria (3 BCE)
3. From Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy (524 CE)
4. From Andreas Capellanus, On Love (1185–90)
5. From Jean de Meun, The Romance of the Rose (c. 1275)
6. Francis Petrarch, Sonnet 132 (c. 1370)

Appendix C: Medieval Science

1. From Constantine the African, Viaticum (c. 1060)
2. From Gerard of Berry, Glosses on the Viaticum (late 12th century CE)
3. From Bona Fortuna, Treatise on the Viaticum (early 14th century CE)
4. From Macrobius, On Dreams (c. 400)
5. The Ptolemaic Universe (c. 1539)

Select Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

Apparently a reprint of a 1989 edition of the poem for beginning Chaucer readers, based on A. C. Baugh's 1963 . Shoaf includes many marginal glosses, extensive annotations, a brief glossary of frequently occurring difficult words, and an introduction that sets the literary and historical context. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

James Dean and Harriet Spiegel have produced an elegant edition of Chaucer’s masterpiece that will stand next to the Broadview Canterbury Tales as the most widely adapted classroom edition. It wears its considerable learning lightly and lets Chaucer’s poetry speak for itself, while still providing helpful notes and glosses to guide the reader. Spiegel is widely known as a translator of medieval literature and Dean is one of the most respected scholars and editors of his generation. Together they make a great team, and it shows on every page and every line of this edition. It will be on my syllabus, and I recommend it to everyone who teaches the Troilus.” — John Ganim, University of California at Riverside

“Everything a reader of Troilus would want: generous glossing; a lucid review of critical history; excerpts from Boccaccio and Benoît de Sainte-Maure; and a full text and translation, prepared specifically for this edition, of Henryson’s Testament. And much more.” — Sarah Stanbury, College of the Holy Cross

“Our students deserve to encounter the Troilus more often than they do, and this impressive edition will make such encounters possible. Its price (digital and print) takes into account the exigencies of student budgets. Thoughtfully accommodating all the dimensions of accessibility, the editors and press have given us a clear, up-to-date edition whose single-text editorial approach will make it useful not only in courses in medieval literature, but also those in textual studies or editorial theory. Everyone who teaches Chaucer should acquire this edition.” — Karla Taylor, Arthuriana

“The Broadview Troilus is an excellent edition for undergraduate students, helpful in its glossing and rich in its commentary.” — John C. Hirsh, Georgetown University

From the Publisher