Chaucer and the Poets : An Essay on Troilus and Criseyde / / Winthrop Wetherbee.

• Author: Wetherbee, Winthrop, 1938-
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca : : Cornell University Press,, 1984.; ©1984.
• Year of Publication: 1984
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (250 pages)
• Notes: Includes index.

In this sensitive reading of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, Winthrop Wetherbee redefines the nature of Chaucer's poetic vision. Using as a starting point Chaucer's profound admiration for the achievement of Dante and the classical poets, Wetherbee sees the Troilus as much more than a courtly treatment of an event in ancient history-it is, he asserts, a major statement about the poetic tradition from which it emerges. Wetherbee demonstrates the evolution of the poet-narrator of the Troilus, who begins as a poet of romance, bound by the characters' limited worldview, but who in the end becomes a poet capable of realizing the tragic and ultimately the spiritual implications of his story.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- A Note on Texts -- Introduction -- 1. The Narrátor, Troilus, and the Poetic Agenda -- 2. Love Psychology: The Troilus and the Roman de la Rose -- 3. History versus the Individual: Vergil and Ovid in the Troilus -- 4. Thebes and Troy: Statius and Dante's Statius -- 5. Dante and the Troilus -- 6. Character and Action: Criseyde and the Narrator -- 7. Troilus Alone -- 8. The Ending of the Troilus -- Index