This book, the first to be devoted to the story of Troilus and Cressida as it develops through the ages and in various literatures, is the joint effort of an international team of scholars. It studies a myth which represents an important aspect of the European imagination: the way in which the problems of love and death are faced in narrative, poetry, drama, and opera. From the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans the story passes into the hands of artists such as Benoit de Sainte Maure, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Henryson, Shakespeare, and Dryden, and is finally resurrected in the twentieth century in America, England, and Germany. This book analyses the changes - both literary and more broadly imaginative - that minor and major writers have introduced, and thus constitutes the product of a truly intertextual and comparative approach. While devoting attention to all these authors and their works, the volume concentrates on the treatment of the theme in Chaucer and Shakespeare and is therefore aimed at students of English and Comparative Literature as well as those general readers who are interested in the history of European culture.

Contributors:Piero Boitani, University of Rome, Malcolm Andrew, Queen's University, Belfast, C. David Benson, University of Connecticut, Jill Mann, University of Cambridge, Karl Reichl, University of Bonn, Anna Torti, University of Verona, Barry Windeatt, University of Cambridge, Sergio Rufini, University of Perugia, Giulia Natali, University of Rome, Agostino Lombardo, University of Rome, Roberto Antonelli, University of Rome, Derek Brewer, University of Cambridge