Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustration
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Troy in the Older Scots Historical Tradition
- 2 Troy in the Older Scots Romance and Nine Worthies Tradition
- 3 The Scottish Troy Book
- 4 Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and Henryson's Testament of cresseid
- 5 Gavin Douglas' Eneados
- Conclusion
- Appendix
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and Henryson's Testament of cresseid
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2014
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustration
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Troy in the Older Scots Historical Tradition
- 2 Troy in the Older Scots Romance and Nine Worthies Tradition
- 3 The Scottish Troy Book
- 4 Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and Henryson's Testament of cresseid
- 5 Gavin Douglas' Eneados
- Conclusion
- Appendix
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Despite the fact that few medieval Scottish witnesses of Chaucer's poetry survive, his strong influence on fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Scottish literature is evidenced by verbal echoes and stylistic and thematic parallels in the works of poets such as James I, Blind Hary, Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, Gavin Douglas and David Lyndsay. John Ireland also refers to Chaucer's ‘buk of troylus’ and ‘persounis taill’ in The Meroure of Wysdome (1490).
This chapter examines readings of and responses to Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde (NIMEV 3327) in two productions: firstly, Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Arch. Selden. B. 24, the Scottish anthology containing Troilus and Criseyde which was compiled for the Sinclair family c. 1489–1505; and, secondly, Robert Henryson's individual, creative and challenging response to Troilus, The Testament of Cresseid (NIMEV 285), written sometime between 1475 and 1490. Following on from the previous chapter's analysis of female characters and rhetoric in the STB, this chapter focuses specifically on Chaucer's Criseyde and Henryson's Cresseid. It examines the way in which, in both the manuscript anthology and poem, the two related heroines are constructed not simply as characters per se, but also as texts – emblems and symbols of the Trojan textual tradition. As such, they voice wider concerns about literary interpretation and authority and ultimately question the very nature and existence of poetic truth.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Trojan Legend in Medieval Scottish Literature , pp. 121 - 149Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2014