Review: Troilus and Criseyde

Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a very nice and useful edition, with the text of Boccaccio's Filostrato -- the source of Chaucer's poem -- on the facing page. This allows the reader to compare both texts closely, and to see where Chaucer departs from and expands, often greatly, on his source. In the second half of the book is a selection of scholarly articles on the poem. The only fault I can point to is one that this edition shares with too many editions of poems with explanatory notes -- that where a note is most needed, there almost never seems to be one. The story itself is marvelous, funny, sad, vexing, and enlightening. I look forward to re-reading Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida to see what he did with Chaucer's story.

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