Reassessing Chaucer's Cosmological Discourse at the End of Troilus and Criseyde (c.1385)

Summary

Chaucer's ineffectiveness at providing narrative closure is a well known trait across his writings. His fourteenth-c. poem Troilus and Criseyde at first glance appears to be one such case, as it has an ending that reverses — or one could argue even rejects — the preceding focus on secular love. In the poem we are first introduced to a young Trojan warrior knight, Troilus, who is ignorant of love, but then falls for the beautiful Criseyde; the woes and joys of the couple's courtly love are portrayed against the backdrop of the Trojan- Greek war. After consummation is achieved, a crisis ensues, as Criseyde's father, who had defected to the Greek side, brokers a deal where she should be exchanged for political prisoners. The Trojan court agrees to the deal, and she departs; although Troilus remains steadfast in his love, Criseyde's affections are diverted to the Greek warrior Diomede. When Troilus is killed on the battlefield, Chaucer has him withdraw from this world to an otherworldly space where Troilus scorns those in love, and instructs us to focus our attentions on the one true form of love, Divine devotion.

This moment of Troilus's apotheosis has attracted much debate, as there is difficulty in “fitting” Troilus's withdrawal to any kind of otherworldly sphere with the narrative that has preceded it, due to the sudden change and apparent irresolution of his love experiences. In addition, there is also disappointment that a Christian reading of the narrative's lessons appears as an after-thought to make the tale compatible with fourteenth-c.