Echoes of Boethius and Dantein Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde

Abstract

Scholars have identified over 30 points in Troilus and Criseyde where Chaucer is clearly translating directly from Dante's Commedia. Yet he never indicates his debt or refers to Dante explicitly. The echoes of Dante's text are particularly dense in the poem's opening lines in Book 1, at the moment in Book 3 when Troilus and Criseyde acheive physical union, and above all in the closing section of Book 5. Close examination of these sections suggests that Chaucer was pursuing a deliberate, but hidden strategy that culminates in the final lines of the poem, by which Troilus's trajectory is deliberately and constantly contrasted ironically with Dante's. While Troilus and the poem's narratorial voice identify the sexual union of Book 3 with achieved bliss, the Dantean references and Boethian elements invite a quite different reading. The references to Statius in Chaucer's poem, in particular, cannot be fully understood without reference to the role he plays in Dante's Commedia, as the archetype of the Christian poet confronting his religious and moral responsibilities in a pagan literary tradition. A brief survey of the echoes of Boethius' Consolation in Troilus shows a similar strategy of indirect, ironic commentary on Troilus' notions of happiness.