This book, the first to be devoted to the story of Troilus and Cressida as it develops through the ages and in various literatures, is the joint effort of an international team of scholars. It studies a myth which represents an important aspect of the European imagination: the way in which the problems of love and death are faced in narrative, poetry, drama, and opera. From the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans the story passes into the hands of artists such as Benoit de Sainte Maure, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Henryson, Shakespeare, and Dryden, and is finally resurrected in the twentieth century in America, England, and Germany. This book analyses the changes - both literary and more broadly imaginative - that minor and major writers have introduced, and thus constitutes the product of a truly intertextual and comparative approach. While devoting attention to all these authors and their works, the volume concentrates on the treatment of the theme in Chaucer and Shakespeare and is therefore aimed at students of English and Comparative Literature as well as those general readers who are interested in the history of European culture.
Contributors:Piero Boitani, University of Rome, Malcolm Andrew, Queen's University, Belfast, C. David Benson, University of Connecticut, Jill Mann, University of Cambridge, Karl Reichl, University of Bonn, Anna Torti, University of Verona, Barry Windeatt, University of Cambridge, Sergio Rufini, University of Perugia, Giulia Natali, University of Rome, Agostino Lombardo, University of Rome, Roberto Antonelli, University of Rome, Derek Brewer, University of Cambridge.
Industry Reviews
`this volume provides an extremely lively account both of the development of the Troilus narrative and also of the cultural implications of these development of the Troilus narrative and also of the cultural implications of these developments.
' The contributors to this splendidly collaborative venture are drawn from Italy, England, America and Germany, and work with remarkable harmony in a variety of critical styles ranging from the refreshingly belletristic to the close analysis of genre and philosophical vocabularly. Anyone who wishes to see criticism and scholarship at their best - entirely free of idees fexes or of aggression - is bound to welcome this volume.'
The moving spirit of the book is the editor Piero Boitani, professor of English in Rome, who has already established himself as the foremost medievalist of his generation.'
Robin Kirkpatrick, Weekend Telegraph
'this volume provides an extremely lively account both of the development of the Troilus narrative and also of the cultural implications of these developments ... Anyone who wishes to see criticism and scholarship at their best - entirely free of idées fixes or of aggression - is bound to welcome this volume.'
Robin Kirkpatrick, Daily Telegraph
well-conceived volume ... The strengths of this excellent volume reflect the peculiarities of its European pedigree. The four British contributors are strong on local detail and manuscript contexts; the five Italians, with their liceo classico educations, have an impressive sense of cultural depth which allows them to relate vernacular texts to Greek and Latin antecedents.'
Renaissance Quarterly
'elegant formulations, clear summaries, and sensitive translations'
Times Literary Supplement
'this is a valuable collection'
Paul Hartle, Country Life
'As the first book to offer a comprehensive survey of the Troilus story in Europe, the present volume is to be welcomed. This is a very interesting book.'
Etude Anglaises, T.XLVI, No.1 (1991)
'Piero Boitani has edited here a collection of very good essays on the different versions of the story of Troilus and Criseyde/Cressida, and packaged them expertly, in a manner which will please reeaders as much as it must have pleased the publishers, between two superb essays of his own.'
Derek Pearsall, Harvard University, Yearbook of English Studies, 1992
'this is a rich and competent collection'
S.H.A. Shepherd, Archiv für das Stadium der neuren Sprachen und Literaturen, 1992
