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Troilus and Criseyde (Penguin Classics)
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Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Author: Geoffrey Chaucer
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Average Customer Rating:
Our Price: $9.35
You Save: $ 1.65 ( 15% )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Author: Geoffrey Chaucer
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Average Customer Rating:
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Troilus and Criseyde (Penguin Classics) Description
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 821.1
EAN: 9780140442397
ISBN: 0140442391
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 368
Publication Date: 1971-04-30
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Studio: Penguin Classics
Dewey Decimal Number: 821.1
EAN: 9780140442397
ISBN: 0140442391
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 368
Publication Date: 1971-04-30
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Studio: Penguin Classics
Editorial Review of Troilus and Criseyde (Penguin Classics)
The tragedy of Troilus and Criseyde is one of the greatest narrative poems in English literature. Set during the siege of Troy, it tells how the young knight Troilus, son of King Priam, falls in love with Criseyde, a beautiful widow. Brought together by Criseyde’s uncle, Pandarus, the lovers are then forced apart by the events of war, which test their oaths of fidelity and trust to the limits. Described by editor Barry Windeatt as Chaucer’s “most ambitious single achievement, his masterpiece,” Troilus and Criseyde is the first work in English to depict human passion with such sympathy and understanding.
Customer Reviews of Troilus and Criseyde (Penguin Classics)
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Reviews don't necessarily apply to the edition you are looking at
Review: Amazon seems to be including all the reviews of different editions and translations of Chaucer's "Troilus and Criseyde" on the same page. If you read the reviews here you will be very confused. Some refer to an original language edition (either the one made by R. A. Shoaf or Stephen Barney's Norton Critical edition), and some refer to a translation, at least one to the translation done by Nevill Coghill. The reader needs to pay careful attention to what edition is actually on the screen when making a selection.
If you want to read the original text, I would recommend Stephen Barney's edition. Barney is the editor who made the critical edition for the Riverside Chaucer, and his Norton Critical edition includes ten excellent critical essays in addition to Chaucer's poem, Giovanni Boccaccio's "Il Filostrato" (Chaucer's source), and Robert Henryson's "Testament of Crisseid." Shoaf's edition is also good, but twice as expensive, and it does not have as much contextual material. Coghill is a fine translator of Chaucer, and for the reader who does not want to tackle the Middle English he will provide an adequate experience. But beware: His smooth couplets sound more like Alexander Pope than the vigorous medieval writer he is translating.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A slave of love
Review: Geoffrey Chaucer's fresh, but, sometimes very sentimental text tells the story of the brave knight, Troilus, a `slave of love', Criseyde, a realistic widow, and their go-between, the intriguer and opportunist, Pandarus.
For the idealist, Troilus: 'Next to the foulest nettle, tick and rough, / Rises the rose in sweetness, smooth and soft.'
For the realist, Criseyde: 'Am I to love and put myself in danger? / Am I to lose my darling liberty? / She who loves none has little cause for tears. / Husbands are always full of jealousy' / And men are too untrue /Or masterful, or hunting novelty.'
The sly intriguer Pandarus brings them together: 'Just as with dice chance governs every throw / So too with love, its pleasures come and go.'
However, the love between Troilus and Criseyde cannot blossom for political reasons. The realist betrays the idealist.
For Troilus (Chaucer), the fundamental question is: 'Since all that comes, comes by necessity / Thus to be lost is but my destiny.'
Was his fate ruled by predestination or was there only foreknowledge by God? 'To prone predestination, yet again others affirm we have free choice. To question which is cause of which, / and see Whether the fact of God's foreknowledge is / the certain cause of the necessity.'
Chaucer's answer is `determinism': 'And this is quite sufficient anyway To prove free choice in us a mere pretence.'
However, the priests are not his favorites: 'The temple priests incline to tell you this / That dreams are sent as Heaven's revelations; / They also tell you, and with emphasis / They're diabolic hallucinations.'
For Chaucer, 'Think this world is but a fair / passing as soon as flower-scent in air.'
This poem is not as strong as the Canterbury Tales, but it is a must read for all lovers of world literature.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: This is NOT the Shoaf Edition of Troilus and Criseyde, it is a collection of essays!
Review: Please be careful! Everything on this page gives you the impression that this is a hardcover version of Shoaf's edition of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. IT IS NOT - IT DOES NOT EVEN CONTAIN THE POEM. This is a collection of essays about the poem that is really only suited to Chaucer scholars. Don't make the same mistake I made. It should be subtitled - ESSAYS - or have some other clear description of the nature of the book. I can not evaluate the essays, because I haven't yet read the poem because of this mis-identification of these Essays with the Superior Shoaf edition of Troilus and Criseyde by Chaucer.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: misleading information
Review: Your web-page is misleading. It quotes, and the image displays, the Middle English original of the poem. The inside pages shown are from the Middle English edition. However, (and the modernized title should be a giveaway, but it wasn't) the edition on this page is in modern English -- a translation, not Chaucer's poem. You need to clean up this page, take away the Middle English quotations, state that it's a modern translation, and refer the prospective buyer to the actual, modernized edition -- which the buyer may or may not want (in my case I did not), with assistance in finding the actual Middle English masterpiece.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Lovely, if hard.
Review: This is a great edition for the masochist literature lover who wants to attempt middle english text. The footnotes are well researched and the supplementary papers are great additions.
As to the actual story, it is a wonderful, if not a little too realistic, love story taking place during the Trojan war. It mixes Greek customs and period with Chaucer's life in the middle ages. The story confuses itself with middle age customs with ancient greek traditions, with some parts completely unable to be understood (as the footnotes can atest with the same difficulties).
A good edition for English majors, bad for the faint of heart.
Review Summary: Reviews don't necessarily apply to the edition you are looking at
Review: Amazon seems to be including all the reviews of different editions and translations of Chaucer's "Troilus and Criseyde" on the same page. If you read the reviews here you will be very confused. Some refer to an original language edition (either the one made by R. A. Shoaf or Stephen Barney's Norton Critical edition), and some refer to a translation, at least one to the translation done by Nevill Coghill. The reader needs to pay careful attention to what edition is actually on the screen when making a selection.
If you want to read the original text, I would recommend Stephen Barney's edition. Barney is the editor who made the critical edition for the Riverside Chaucer, and his Norton Critical edition includes ten excellent critical essays in addition to Chaucer's poem, Giovanni Boccaccio's "Il Filostrato" (Chaucer's source), and Robert Henryson's "Testament of Crisseid." Shoaf's edition is also good, but twice as expensive, and it does not have as much contextual material. Coghill is a fine translator of Chaucer, and for the reader who does not want to tackle the Middle English he will provide an adequate experience. But beware: His smooth couplets sound more like Alexander Pope than the vigorous medieval writer he is translating.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A slave of love
Review: Geoffrey Chaucer's fresh, but, sometimes very sentimental text tells the story of the brave knight, Troilus, a `slave of love', Criseyde, a realistic widow, and their go-between, the intriguer and opportunist, Pandarus.
For the idealist, Troilus: 'Next to the foulest nettle, tick and rough, / Rises the rose in sweetness, smooth and soft.'
For the realist, Criseyde: 'Am I to love and put myself in danger? / Am I to lose my darling liberty? / She who loves none has little cause for tears. / Husbands are always full of jealousy' / And men are too untrue /Or masterful, or hunting novelty.'
The sly intriguer Pandarus brings them together: 'Just as with dice chance governs every throw / So too with love, its pleasures come and go.'
However, the love between Troilus and Criseyde cannot blossom for political reasons. The realist betrays the idealist.
For Troilus (Chaucer), the fundamental question is: 'Since all that comes, comes by necessity / Thus to be lost is but my destiny.'
Was his fate ruled by predestination or was there only foreknowledge by God? 'To prone predestination, yet again others affirm we have free choice. To question which is cause of which, / and see Whether the fact of God's foreknowledge is / the certain cause of the necessity.'
Chaucer's answer is `determinism': 'And this is quite sufficient anyway To prove free choice in us a mere pretence.'
However, the priests are not his favorites: 'The temple priests incline to tell you this / That dreams are sent as Heaven's revelations; / They also tell you, and with emphasis / They're diabolic hallucinations.'
For Chaucer, 'Think this world is but a fair / passing as soon as flower-scent in air.'
This poem is not as strong as the Canterbury Tales, but it is a must read for all lovers of world literature.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: This is NOT the Shoaf Edition of Troilus and Criseyde, it is a collection of essays!
Review: Please be careful! Everything on this page gives you the impression that this is a hardcover version of Shoaf's edition of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. IT IS NOT - IT DOES NOT EVEN CONTAIN THE POEM. This is a collection of essays about the poem that is really only suited to Chaucer scholars. Don't make the same mistake I made. It should be subtitled - ESSAYS - or have some other clear description of the nature of the book. I can not evaluate the essays, because I haven't yet read the poem because of this mis-identification of these Essays with the Superior Shoaf edition of Troilus and Criseyde by Chaucer.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: misleading information
Review: Your web-page is misleading. It quotes, and the image displays, the Middle English original of the poem. The inside pages shown are from the Middle English edition. However, (and the modernized title should be a giveaway, but it wasn't) the edition on this page is in modern English -- a translation, not Chaucer's poem. You need to clean up this page, take away the Middle English quotations, state that it's a modern translation, and refer the prospective buyer to the actual, modernized edition -- which the buyer may or may not want (in my case I did not), with assistance in finding the actual Middle English masterpiece.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Lovely, if hard.
Review: This is a great edition for the masochist literature lover who wants to attempt middle english text. The footnotes are well researched and the supplementary papers are great additions.
As to the actual story, it is a wonderful, if not a little too realistic, love story taking place during the Trojan war. It mixes Greek customs and period with Chaucer's life in the middle ages. The story confuses itself with middle age customs with ancient greek traditions, with some parts completely unable to be understood (as the footnotes can atest with the same difficulties).
A good edition for English majors, bad for the faint of heart.