Troilus and Criseyde

Geoffrey Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, the first novel in the English language, is a powerful work of the imagination that chronicles the affair of two lovers, Troilus and Criseyde, as their lonely lives shift to ones of passion and commitment for three years amidst the backdrop of the Trojan War. In this unforgettable tale, which, as the opening lines tell us, is a story of the “double sorrow” of Troilus and how “his lot passed from woe to joy and afterwards to woe again,” we discover the complex nature of love, filled with its passion, obstacles, hopes, insecurities, joys, and heartbreaks. Chaucer is honest with his readers, giving us nothing simplified, nothing idealized, and nothing false in his depiction of love. Known as “the father of English poetry,” Chaucer wrote some of the most memorable stories in the English language. Timeless in the issues and ideas that they touch upon, filled with the joy, despair, kindness, and wickedness of the human soul, his works speak clearly to generation after generation.