Essay Ally

The Prologues of Troilus and Criseyde: The Rhetoric of Sarcasm 

The pain of writing and anguish of work,

Help me St. Jude to my hopeless cause.

This paper is overdue and I need a drink,

Dionysus, come to my aid without pause.

My purpose is only to finish this essay,

To hand it in promptly as I am afraid,

That my tardiness of writing will yield a bad grade.

The commencement of any novel has the potential to affect the meaning of the work and often lingers in the readers mind long after the rest of the piece has been forgotten. If someone were to quote “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” most readers would recognize the work immediately as Charles Dickens’s Tale of Two Cities and “Call me Ishmael,” would immediately spark visions of Moby Dick. But this convention of having notable beginnings that affect the central meaning of the book are not monopolized by modern writers and indeed, Geoffrey Chaucer is a master at leading into his poetry. His prologues in Troilus and Criseyde, have a profound affect on the semantics of the poem and his careful choice of deities for invocation make his narration all the more masterful.

Each of the five books should be treated separately in their tone and meaning. Accordingly, each book has its own prologue which invokes its own appropriate god. In every book the deity called upon affects the meaning of the poem greatly. Chaucer carefully selects beings that would have been known to his audience and generally associated with specific traits or qualities. Using this approach, the selection proves as a foreshadowing tool and acts as a narrative tool to bring attention to the literary nature of the story.

Book I immediately invokes Thesiphone, the fury of tragedy:

The double sorwe of Troiuls to tellen,

That was the kyng of Priamus sone of Troye,

In lovynge, how his aventures fellen

Fro wo to wele, an after out of joie,

My purpos is, er that I parte fro ye.

Thesiphone, thow help me for t’endite

Thise woful vers, that wepen as I write. (Book I, 1-7)

To the medieval audience, this would raise a flag. Thesiphone’s presence in the first ten lines of the poem alerts the reader that this story will not end well. Like every tragedy, the ending must be unhappy. Besides the obvious outright statement of Troilus going “Frowo to wele, an after out of joie,” the fury of tragedy is there to tell the audience to expect an unhappy story. Thesiphone foreshadows both Troilus immediate depression and his ultimate death at the end of the poem.

The remaining books invoke Cleo, Venus, Calliope, the furies and the fates in an appropriate manner relevant to the nature of each book. Book II’s invocation is particularly interesting. Venus is invoked because of the love element between Troilus and Criseyde, but what is Calliope doing there? Chaucer likes to make the audience aware that his poems are stories and not real. Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, is there to help the poet tell his story. The poet asks Calliope for help with his writing:

O lady myn, that called art Cleo,

Thow be my speed fro this forth, and my Muse,

To ryme wel this book til I have do;

Me nedeth here noon other art to use.

Forwhi to every lovere I me excuse,

That of no sentement I this enite.

But out of Latyn in my tonge it write. (Book II, 8-14)

The narrator asks for help in rhyming well. He means this is both a literal and more rhetorical sense. He wishes to be able to rhyme the lines and create the poem, but also he is asking for help in making the poem successful and being a successful epic poet. Chaucer does this intentionally to break the stare of the audience. He does not wish for them to purely accept his story as fact and he mentions that since he is translating the story from an old text, he may not even be telling it quite properly. Chaucer intentionally undermines himself with narrator intervention. The poem is not simply a love story that took place in Troy; it is about the act of creation and a celebration of Art. Chaucer wants the audience to be aware of the process of writing.

One scholar, Richard Horvath notes that Chaucer uses “an epistolary style that negotiates tensions between oral address and the conditions of writing” which is a “central conflict” in most of Chaucer’s poetry (Horvath, 173). Horvath goes on to suggest that Chaucer is concerned with the public nature of his work and the difficulty in conveying truth to an audience. From the use of the prologues and the presence of Calliope, this seems to be a very likely conclusion. Chaucer is concerned with what his audience thinks and how they will perceive the story. He does not want this to simply be a bowl of morals that is spoon-fed to the audience; he wants them to question the nature of poetry and whether the morals are to be readily accepted.

Another interesting example of this dilemma is created by the final prologue. Chaucer invokes the fates:

Aprochen gan the fata destyne

That Joves hath in disposicioun,

And to yow, angry Parcas, sustren thre,

Committeth to don execucioun;

For which Criseyde moste out of the town,

And Troilus shal dwellen forth in pyne

Til Lachesis his thred no lenger twyne. (Book V, 1-7)

The “angry Parcas” are there to make known that fate will befall Troilus. Troilus must die as fate dictates. This creates several paradoxes. The notion of “angry” fates is contradictory. As Chaucer has noted in The House of Fame, fortune makes her decisions arbitrarily, not based on any weighted system of merit. The fates likewise, should not be angry or appeased, they should be indifferent. Another contradiction raised is on this notion of destiny and pre-determination. The narrator supposes that Troilus has no choice in his death, that this is the time for him to die. The fate, Lachesis has control of Troilus’s “thred.” This assumption on the narrator’s part is problematic at best. If Troilus is destined to die at the hands of Achilles why does Chaucer work so hard at developing Troilus’s paralysis?

In order for Troilus to die must constantly be inactive against his character and at times where it seems so improbably that the audience is near yelling at him to just make a move. It takes two books and much coaxing from Pandarus for Troilus to make any progress toward approaching Criseyde and scheming from Pandarus to have them unite. In Book IV when Troilus faces losing the woman that he is so much in love with and entirely dependent on he simply goes to his room and cries. This seems so against the cocky, arrogant, handsome soldier and prince that Troilus is first described as. He refuses to love another; “I wolde nat do so,” he insists to Pandarus (Book IV, 459). Yet Troilus is unwilling to risk dishonor by running away with Criseyde, despite the fact that he is now involved in a war caused by the callous attitude of his brother Paris. This seems so unlikely and yet it is the way the story proceeds. His steadfastness is contrary to his character. The fates in Book V are there to not only announce his imminent death but to illustrate that destiny is not real and that the author has true control over the events of the book.

The invocation and complications caused by narrative voice in the prologues have profound effects on the tone of the book. Although the deities chosen for invocation are relevant to the content of the corresponding book, they way that they are positioned changes the weight of the themes. Where Book I and the entire poem are about tragedy, Thesiphone’s presence undermines this theme and makes the poem less accidentally tragic, and more intentionally tragic. Calliope and Venus mark the second book’s dedication to love and poetry but at the same time highlight the trite nature of love as a motif for poetry. Chaucer masterfully plays with sarcasm and determinedly focuses audience’s attention on the nature of the poem’s morals as flexible and unreliable. The brilliance of the paradox is overwhelming. The most confusing and sarcastic moments come with the end of the poem which is a nice compliment to the dishonest sincerity of the prologues.

Troilus is “slayn” by Achilles and then floats “to the holughnesse of the eighthe spere,” at the end of Book V (Book V, 1807-1809). It is here that he can look down upon his brethren and laugh at the situation he was involved in with Criseyde. He thinks of his old life with bemusement and the ending seems strange for a tragedy. Troilus is happy in his place and the poem turns out to be a false tragedy. For all the foreshadowing in the first prologue and the announcement of fate in the final prologue the poem has not ended as it is destined. The prologues are not to be trusted and fate does not really have control over the life Troilus. If this event is not strange enough, Chaucer’s narrator again brings attention to his storytelling.

There is an epilogue which proposes another moral entirely.

Lo here, of payens corsed olde rites!

Lo here, what alle hire goddes may availle!

Lo here, thise wrecched worldes appetites

[. . .]

And to that sothfast crist, that starf on rode,

Withy al myn herte of mercy evere I preye,

And to the Lord right thus I speke and seye:

Thow oon, and two, and thre, eterne on lyve,

That regnest ay in thre, and two and oon,

[. . .]

So make us, Jesus, for thi mercy, digne,

For love of mayde and moder thyn benigne.

Amen. (Book V, 1849-1870)

Here Chaucer’s narrator says that pagan’s gods little prevail. He then goes on to remind the audience of their true god Jesus and his mercy and dignity. Are we to take Chaucer seriously? The same person who is offering us this moral invoked these pagan gods himself at the beginning of each book. Are we to see flaw in his invocations or in this moral? We are meant to question both the invocations validity and the validity of this moral. It is well disguised in the guise of a support for Christianity but at the same time a careful reader can not dismiss the teachings of the prologues. If we are to accept this moral then the plea to Calliope for the poem to be successful must be unsuccessful. A pagan god can surely not have the power to reward those who appeal to them. If the plea to Calliope was successful and the epic indeed turns out to be enjoyable and well written, then we can’t accept the moral about pagan gods. This cyclic paradox well exhibits the prowess that Chaucer has in poetry and the manipulation of a narrative.

We are forced to make a decision to only half-accept both offerings from the narrator. In some ways the prologues are successful, the books indeed offer the gifts that the invoked deities are supposed to supply. The moral offer yields some truth for Thesiphone fails in her tragedy and Troilus’s god Apollo also fails him. But at the same time we must not accept that the prologues and epilogue are completely honest. We must see them for what they truly are; rhetoric devices set to manipulate the audience.

There is an intricate link between form and meaning and a reader’s first impression shapes their understanding of an entire work. Chaucer recognizes this vulnerability and manipulates it to the fullest. Each introduction is a carefully crafted prologue which by itself seems simplistic and straightforward, but when considered in the context of the entire work and in the whole of Chaucer’s writing is understandably well-intended to serve as a tool in making the piece more complex and meaningful. Chaucer does not intend for us to simply read Troilus and Criseyde and to accept its obvious moral, but to approach the epic with skepticism and learn something about ourselves and about literature.

Word Count: 2039

Works Referenced:

Fumo, Jamie. “‘Little Troilus’: Heroides 5 and Its Ovidian Contexts in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde.” Studies in Philology. 100.3 (Summer 2003), 278-314

Horvath, Richard. “Chaucer’s Epistolary Poetic: The Envoys to Bukton and Scogan.” The Chaucer Review 37.2 (2002) 173-189

Massey, Jeff. “‘The Double Bind of Troilus to Tellen’: The Time of the Gift in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde.” The Chaucer Review 38.1 (2003) 16-35

Spearing, A. C. “Narrative Voice: The Case of Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale.” New Literary History - 32.3 Summer 2001, 715-746