Geoffrey Chaucer’s famous Middle English poem, Troilus and Criseyde, relays a calamitous love story set during the Trojan War. Nearly a century later, Robert Henryson, ‘Scottish Chaucerian’, authored his own poetic continuation of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde entitled, The Testament of Cresseid. Although the two highly expressive pieces of poetry are inclusive of and are remarking on consistent characters, Chaucer and Henryson could not have composed two more vastly contrasting representations of the same woman. In examining the representations of Chaucer’s Criseyde and Henryson’s Cresseid, the poems’ differences and similarities were relatively clear. Chaucer’s guarded ambiguity versus Henryson’s bold explicitness towards the heroine’s body’s
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Once Pandarus learns of her infidelity, the two characters become sentimentally adverse. Pandarus is overcome with hatred for Criseyde’s betrayal of Troilus, while Troilus is so very defeated by love that he is simply unable to think angrily or feel animosity. Jamie C. Fumo agrees in her article “Hating Criseyde: Last Words on a Heroine from Chaucer to Henryson” …show more content…
Nearly a century later, Robert Henryson, a ‘Scottish Chaucerian’, authored his own continuation of Chaucer’s aforementioned poem entitled, The Testament of Cresseid. These poems are both highly acclaimed in the literary field and their connection can be seen as a deep and moral transformation of the poems’ shared female heroine, perhaps one of the most radically changed heroines in literature. While the personification of this character was poetically laid out by two poets, this should not disrepute the character herself. “The character of Criseyde in Chaucer’s poem […] provides the very raison d’être for Henryson’s: The Testament of Cresseid is the dénouement in the tragic history of the woman Henryson considered, perhaps correctly, to be the major figure in the Troilus.” (98) Who is to say where Chaucer’s guarded ambiguity or lack of compassion comes from, or why he poetically forces internal suffering upon Criseyde, or why his poem demonstrates that simply love or hate is the only legitimate ways one can feel? He lived a much privileged life considering the time he was living in. He was middle classed, his family survived the black death (although they were drunks), worked as a civil servant, became a writer. Henryson, instead, uses bold explicitness, creates physical suffering for Cresseid and has infinite compassion for her in his writing. These elements might stem from his years working in an abbey where he
Once Pandarus learns of her infidelity, the two characters become sentimentally adverse. Pandarus is overcome with hatred for Criseyde’s betrayal of Troilus, while Troilus is so very defeated by love that he is simply unable to think angrily or feel animosity. Jamie C. Fumo agrees in her article “Hating Criseyde: Last Words on a Heroine from Chaucer to Henryson” …show more content…
Nearly a century later, Robert Henryson, a ‘Scottish Chaucerian’, authored his own continuation of Chaucer’s aforementioned poem entitled, The Testament of Cresseid. These poems are both highly acclaimed in the literary field and their connection can be seen as a deep and moral transformation of the poems’ shared female heroine, perhaps one of the most radically changed heroines in literature. While the personification of this character was poetically laid out by two poets, this should not disrepute the character herself. “The character of Criseyde in Chaucer’s poem […] provides the very raison d’être for Henryson’s: The Testament of Cresseid is the dénouement in the tragic history of the woman Henryson considered, perhaps correctly, to be the major figure in the Troilus.” (98) Who is to say where Chaucer’s guarded ambiguity or lack of compassion comes from, or why he poetically forces internal suffering upon Criseyde, or why his poem demonstrates that simply love or hate is the only legitimate ways one can feel? He lived a much privileged life considering the time he was living in. He was middle classed, his family survived the black death (although they were drunks), worked as a civil servant, became a writer. Henryson, instead, uses bold explicitness, creates physical suffering for Cresseid and has infinite compassion for her in his writing. These elements might stem from his years working in an abbey where he