SOURCE: "'Suited in Like Conditions as our Argument': Imitative Form in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida," in Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. XV, No. 2, Spring, 1975, pp. 273-92.

In the essay below, Fly centers on the discontinuity of Troilus and Cressida, observing that "our expectations of formal stability, symmetry, and coherent sequence are repeatedly being frustrated, and we experience as we follow the play unfolding a growing sense of radical disorientation—an apprehension which we gradually come to realize is complementing the informing vision of the play."

Although Dr. Johnson thought Troilus and Cressida "more correctly written than most of Shakespeare's compositions," and although Goethe and Tennyson both could unqualifiedly praise the play, there have nevertheless always been sensitive people who felt that the play fails to obtain a coherent structure. [John] Dryden felt compelled to clear up the play's incoherencies in his redaction [Preface to Troilus and Cressida...