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SOURCE: "Criseyde Becoming Cressida: Troilus and Criseyde and Troilus and Cressida," in The Swan at the Well: Shakespeare Reading Chaucer, Yale University Press, 1985, pp. 74-94.
In the essay below, Donaldson compares Chaucer's Criseyde to Shakespeare 's Cressida, and claims that "though in many ways dissimilar, [they are in some important ways alike; and have equally valid claims on our sympathy. "]
When in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida Ulysses utters his famous condemnation of Cressida,
Fie, fie upon her!
There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip,
Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out
At every joint and motive of her body,
[IV.v.54-57]1
he seems to be responding to one of Chaucer's narrator's not very informative descriptions of Criseyde in the first book of his poem about the lovers:
She nas nat with the most of her stature,
But all her limmes so well answering...
This section contains 10,654 words (approx. 36 pages at 300 words per page) |
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