The European Tragedy of Troilus

This is the first study devoted to the story of Troilus and Cressida as it has developed through the ages and in various literatures. An international team of scholars examine the way in which the problems of love and death are faced in narrative, poetry, drama, and opera. They trace the story in its mythical form as it passed from the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans into the hands of artists such as Benoit de Sainte Maure, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Henryson, Shakespeare, and Dryden, and as it was finally resurrected in the 20th century in America, England, and Germany. Analyzing the changes, both literary and more broadly imaginative, that minor and major writers have introduced, the book provides a truly intertextual and comparative approach.