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Women in Chaucer's time
Women in Chaucer's time
Women in Chaucer's time
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The Trojan War is such an impactful epic that has inspired authors in later ages to continuously borrow ideas and create their own development from the story of Troy. Chaucer is one of these aspiration writers whose Troilus and Criseyde is apparently influenced by Virgil’s The Aeneid. Continuing with Virgil’s steps, Chaucer provides us with an interpretation of Troy story which was built around a tragic love story. However, he intentionally goes on a different path in depicting Troilus and Criseyde’s relationship, compared to Aeneas and Dido’s. An Early Modern writer such as Chaucer certainly has his own ways to portray the theme of love and betrayal instead of reiterating medieval concepts. Both Virgil and Chaucer value love that is passionate …show more content…
She blames herself harshly for betraying Troilus and degrading women’s honor in general: “But since my guilt is settled, hard and fast-/ A falseness far too grievous to undo” (Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, V, 1069-1070). Yet, she is determined by her decision to become Diomedes's lover. Troy and Troilus are now her past while she must live for her future somewhere else, among the Greeks. Criseyde has "graduate from the role of a passive Dido to a departing Aeneas” (Stone) to make the best out of a bad situation. Chaucer pays attention to portray Criseyde as real as possible within a wide range of emotions. Even though he agrees “she’s punished well”, Chaucer still has “compassion” towards Criseyde (Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, V, 1069-1070). He pities Criseyde for her vulnerability and respects her desire to survive. Perhaps what Chaucer wants to convey is that women should not be seen as an attachment to men but as individuals who have their own wants and needs. What Criseyde has done could be immoral, but it could also be the only choice she …show more content…
He keeps sending her letters asking about her faithfulness despite her brief and ambiguous responses. He is confident enough to believe “He’d win her back again, so bright of hue” (Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, V, 1573). Criseyde contributes to lengthening Troilus' meaningless faith by keep saying “I’ll come to you, but now such is my state,/ I’m so in doubt, that what year or what day/ That this shall be,… I can’t supply a date.” (Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, V, 1618-1620). This is the most controversial detail about how Criseyde treats her old lover – Troilus after she decides to be with Diomedes. Her betrayal of Troilus is understandable but why does she lie to come back when she apparently will not? Is it because she still loves him? Or is it because she does not want to dishonor Troilus? Chaucer may want his characters to end up differently from Dido’s tragic death. If Criseyde lets Troilus know she has decided to abandon him, Troilus may react negatively and kill himself. Then, Criseyde will suffer from even worse dishonor. Whatever Chaucer has in mind writing this part, he has foreseen how Criseyde will be harshly criticized for her selfish action. In the end, it seems obvious that Criseyde herself does not have many
A twenty-first century reading of the Iliad and the Odyssey will highlight a seeming lack of justice: hundreds of men die because of an adulteress, the most honorable characters are killed, the cowards survive, and everyone eventually goes to hell. Due to the difference in the time period, culture, prominent religions and values, the modern idea of justice is much different than that of Greece around 750 B.C. The idea of justice in Virgil’s the Aeneid is easier for us to recognize. As in our own culture, “justice” in the epic is based on a system of punishment for wrongs and rewards for honorable acts. Time and time again, Virgil provides his readers with examples of justice in the lives of his characters. Interestingly, the meaning of justice in the Aeneid transforms when applied to Fate and the actions of the gods. Unlike our modern (American) idea of blind, immutable Justice, the meanings and effects of justice shift, depending on whether its subject is mortal or immortal.
The Merchant's revealed nature, however, combats the very destruction of creation and individual that he tried to attain. As the Merchant tries to subsume the reality of marriage, love, and relationship under his own enviously blind view, Chaucer shows us another individual, significant and important in his own way. Instead of acting as a totalizing discourse, Chaucer uses the Merchant's tale to reveal his depraved envy and to reveal him as no more than a wanton cynic. Thus, Chaucer provides the very perspective that the Merchant tries to steal from his audience.
When asked to envision medieval courts, often images from Game of Thrones or The Tudors come to mind -- maybe even Sir Lancelot and jousting. Yet, these television shows and stories derive their inspiration from a genuine historical context so fascinating and pervasive that nearly 1,000 years later Western culture is still transfixed. French author Chrétien de Troyes, who ironically penned the first romantic depiction of Sir Lancelot, wrote many of the tales that inspire modern pop culture. His stories, particularly that of Cligés written in 1176 AD, though filled with sometimes supernatural, amorous, and scintillating drama, can reveal the political and social undercurrent of the Middle Ages. Ultimately, the passionate characters and events
If Geoffrey Chaucer for some unforeseen reason was unable to published The Canterbury Tales, then perhaps, his version of Troilus and Criseyde would be widely acknowledged as one of his most epic tragic poems. However, Chaucer’s poem, though adapted widely into various modern translations, for the sake of this paper the translation by Barry Windeatt will be used, the tale’s influential go-between is still a character trope used today. In fact, the romantic entanglements that the main characters find themselves in are the results of the power structure established by the go-between Pandarus. From the first instance where Pandarus witnesses his friend Troilus’s love-struck grief, the convincing speeches given to yield beneficial results for the Prince Troilus, and the letter trope established in Pandarus’s role as the go-between, which establishes the patriarchal power structure that Pandarus identifies with. Occupying the power structure as defined by theorist Michel Foucault, which upholds that power is the mechanism that establishes the autonomy or de-individualization of a person (Felluga). Therefore, Foucauldian discourse attributed to bodies and power is upheld by the mediator status of Pandarus as the go-between, manipulative rhetor, and plot device in the tale Troilus and Criseyde is used to establish the notions of courtly love.
...g happy together? Women who have no feelings for a man, would never bother trying to convince a man to stay. Adding on to that statement, women who are not madly in love with a man would not seem so crazy and flip flop their emotions like Circe does in the poem. Circe cares for Odysseus, and because of that she lets him go instead of keeping him prisoner. If letting go of him and lying about her true feelings will make him happy then it is what must be done; this is proof of her love.
...ut. They feel bad for him because his stubbornness caused the death’s of his family members, but they also feel fear because of what happened to him. They think If Creon was a king and something this horrible could happen to his , what is there to say that something this horrible can not happen to an average citizen, They will try to adjust their lives so that something like this will not happen to them. It makes them look at the Moral aspects of their life and make them want to change, so they will not be stubborn and prideful and will not end up like King Creon, and that is exactly what a tragic hero is meant to do. Sophocles wrote the play Antigone tache the audience morals and that what a tragic hero is supposed to so, and King Creon accomplishes this the best, That is why Cron is the beAt illustration of a tragic hero.
Criseyde changes her mind just after the reader is informed that Criseyde and Troilus are in love, and Troilus has become a better knight and a better man because of this love. Why would a woman leave after getting so emotionally involved in a relationship? As the text says, “For she began to turn her shining face/Away from Troilus, took of him no heed,/And cast him clean out of his lady’s grace,/” (st. 2, 179)—Criseyde simply turned her head from Troilus, taking “of him no heed” and moving on to Diomede. I believe that Criseyde was unjust in her actions, yet she was forced into the relationship due to two weaknesses that she possesses: her own negligence to the importance of the situation and a lack of willpower. Criseyde is (seemingly) manipulative, yet Pandarus very easily manipulates her at the same time. From the beginning, the reader realizes that Criseyde is not interested in a relationship, but her eccentric uncle does not take notice.
Helen of Troy, known as the most beautiful woman of ancient Greek culture, is the catalyst for the Trojan War. As such, she is the subject of both Edgar Allen Poe’s “To Helen” and H.D.’s “Helen”; however, their perceptions of Helen are opposites. Many poets and authors have written about Helen in regards to her beauty and her treacherous actions. There is a tremendous contrast between the views of Helen in both poems by Poe and Doolittle. The reader may ascertain the contrast in the speakers’ views of Helen through their incorporation of diction, imagery, and tone that help convey the meaning of the work.
Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde is a very widely applauded work of poetry. His works, which include the extensive Canterbury Tales, have a history of being appealing to a variety of people, from the members of the Court to the lesser population. This, some would say, would probably be because Chaucer chooses to direct his writings at all types of characters through the medium of language topical issues and style, but Troilus and Criseyde is a work vastly culminating towards a fairly restricted audience. As it is, it talks of the Trojan war, which only a select crowd or elite would know about, and also, we cannot forget that Chaucer was a favourite at Court ; Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde is based to a large extent on Boccaccio's Il Filostrato, but he made quite a lot of changes to the way the protagonists are portrayed. Chaucer's art rests in the way he describes rounded characters and not really types as some might have thought. The two main characters have been dealt with in such an astute and crafty manner that the reader asks himself whether Troilus as the hero is the main character or is Criseyde the more appealing of the two.
These two works present the development of a narrator, and in many ways, the narrator of Troilus and Criseyde can be seen as the maturing narrator of Parliament of Fowls. The narrator of the latter text is introduced as a man searching for an understanding of love, an emotion so complex that his consciousness is “astonyeth with his wonderful werkynge” (5). While love is certainly an intricate emotion, the narrator has unduly complicated his task: “The lyf so short, the craft so long to learne, / The ‘assay so hard, so sharp the conquerynge, The dredful joye alwey that slit so yerne” (1-3). Rather than developing a clear, concise definition of love, the narrator presents a subject which only becomes clear when he explicitly states that he means love. Even in his waking hours the narrator is confused by his searches in old texts for understanding, which leaves his actions and efforts meaningless.
Despite their differing value sets, the Homeric and chivalric ideals of heroism are both similarly dependent on definitive perspectives of valuation, action, and selfhood. This is why the lens of heroism is the most effective lens through which to analyse Troilus and Cressida as a textual and thematic palimpsest. Most obviously, the conflicting versions of heroism have contradicting ideals. As Bruce Smith observes, “A man cannot be the chivalrous knight and the saucy jack or the Herculean hero and the merchant prince at the same time – or at least he cannot comfortably be so.” The Troy legend produced in medieval and Renaissance collective consciousness an originary basis for literary tropes and heroic moulds. Characters such as Achilles, Ajax, and Hector become synonymous with various brands of masculinity and heroism, and the titular characters of Troilus and Cressida have cultural resonance as archetypal lovers, a concept which is moralized and gendered, who are either true or false in their vows to one another. The play engages with the audience’s collective memory, refiguring the well-known myths so that they are self-referential and distorted. Troilus and Cressida is the Trojan War inverted, the character or Achilles, or Helen, seen as if reflected in a funhouse mirror. They are at once themselves, and (potentially poor) imitations of themselves (a point which is stressed in Ulysses’ criticism of Patroclus in Act 1, Scene 3). Edward L. Hart asserts that the play is a dramatic question, posed by Shakespeare to himself: “What would happen if one should write a play in which all values are reversed, a play in which the mirror held up to life reflects not a positive but a negative image?” The very nature of these characters as archetypes further emphasizes the effect of Shakespeare’s particular moulding of them in a way that destabilizes
Cressida betrays Troilus by not resisting going to the Greeks. Troilus expressed his ardent love for Cressida and shows he really loves her. He even asked Pandarus to partake in wooing her by saying “I tell thee I am mad in Cressida’s love”. (Shakespeare 39) He does prevail over Cressida and she even pronounces her love to him. But when Cressida is taken over to the Greeks, she does not fight or struggle, instead it seems like she goes over with no resistance. Troilus feels betrayed that she behaves this way.
In the Middle Ages, when The Canterbury Tales was written, society became captivated by love and the thought of courtly and debonair love was the governing part of all relationships and commanded how love should be conducted. These principles changed literature completely and created a new genre dedicated to brave, valorous knights embarking on noble quests with the intention of some reward, whether that be their life, lover, or any other want. The Canterbury Tales, written in the 14th century by Geoffrey Chaucer, accurately portrays and depicts this type of genre. Containing a collection of stories within the main novel, only one of those stories, entitled “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”, truly outlines the 14th century community beliefs on courtly love.
...twist. She sharply contrasts with Troilus with her rationality and even her practicality. She measures every action first, while Troilus just follows whatever way will lead him to his perceived goal. All combined, Chaucer manages to create an ideal constantly embued with originality that invokes the readers continual interest in the epic poem, Troilus and Criseyde.
To begin, the one true reason the Trojan War began is because of the astonishing queen named Helen, whose angelic loveliness sparked the tension between Troy and Greece. Helen was the queen of the Greek city-state Sparta, married to King Menelaeus. In Heinrich Schliemann’s book “The Search for Troy” he announced that “Helen was considered to be the most gorgeous mortal in the entire world” (Schliemann 36). Her godly looks were adored all around, but one man was jealous of Greece having such a beautiful queen, and wanted her all to himself. The mighty prince, known to be the prince of Troy, named Paris had traveled to Sparta and kidnapped Helen, and returned to Troy along with her; little did he know that soon his dreadful decision would foreshadow the future of Troy and its citizens. Once the Greeks had discovered that their beloved jewel was missing, and had found where she had been taken to, the Greeks immediately launc...