Graduation Year
2019
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
English
Reader 1
Tessie Prakas
Reader 2
Ellen Rentz
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
2018 Rena Patel
Abstract
The tumulus tale of Troilus and his lover Cressida has left readers intrigued in renditions written by both Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare due to their subversive nature of the authors’ chosen generic forms. Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde challenges the expectations and limitations of the narrative of the chivalric romance. Shakespeare took the story and turned Troilus and Cressida into one of his famous “problem plays” by challenging his audience’s expectations of the tragic genre. I endeavor to draw attention to the ways in which both Chaucer and Shakespeare use the conventions of the chivalric romance and tragedy to play with the imbalances in the central relationship of Troilus and Criseyde/Cressida in the story. These imbalances are the source of experimentation in both texts that allows Chaucer to imbue tragedy in the chivalric romance and allow Shakespeare to undermine tragedy itself.
Recommended Citation
Patel, Rena, ""The Double Sorwe of Troilus": Experimentation of the Chivalric and Tragic Genres in Chaucer and Shakespeare" (2019). Scripps Senior Theses. 1281.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/1281
