Imitation and Allusion

Abstract

Abstract This chapter discusses responses and references to Chaucer’s Troilus, and to the story of Troilus and Criseyde, from the poem’s early circulation to the present day. Topics for analysis include: treatments of Troilus and Criseyde as stock figures and stereotypes, especially once Henryson’s Testament of Cresseid is mistaken for part of Chaucer’s poem; how Troilus functions as a model for fifteenth-century narrative technique, and as a lexicon and style manual for lovers’ language and epistles; how Troilus is cannibalized to create new short poems and centos, and how it is drawn on in Early Modern drama. As Chaucer’s language comes to seem archaic, the seventeenth century sees attempts to modernize Troilus, but the Canterbury Tales becomes Chaucer’s best-known work at the expense of Troilus, a shift in emphasis that continues until revival of interest in the twentieth century, although Troilus continues to attract readers during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.