4. Poetry at last

Abstract

‘Poetry at last: Troilus and Criseyde’ describes the structure and content of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde. Since London styled itself ‘Troynovant’ or ‘New Troy’, imagining itself founded by the Trojan-Latin Brutus, Chaucer immediately saw great potential in Boccaccio’s ottava rima tale, Il Filostrato. The Boccaccio-inspired Troilus and Criseyde tells of a doomed love affair in a doomed city. For three-fifths of its length its trajectory is seemingly comic, or upward-moving, but it is defined as a tragedy. The dense allusiveness of Troilus and Criseyde suggests that Chaucer is writing a poem to be pondered over, many times, rather than listened to once.