Bysechyng Every Lady Bright Of Hewe, And Every Gentil Womman, What She Be,

Bysechyng every lady bright of hewe,
And every gentil womman, what she be,
That al be that Criseyde was untrewe,
That for that gilt she be nat wroth with me:
Ye may hire gilt in other bokes se,
And gladlier I wol write, if yow leste,
Penelopes trouthe and good Alceste.
N'y sey nat this al oonly for thise men,
But moost for women that bitraised be
Thorugh false folk; God yeve hem sorwe, amen!
That with hire grete wit and subtitle
Bytraise yow; and this commeveth me
To speke, and in effect yow alle I preye,
Beth war of men, and herkneth what I seye (1772-85).
Chaucer's poem is, then, a moral tale intended to instruct his female audience as to the consequences of unfaithfulness, rather than establishing the original sin of women.Troilus and Criseyde and Troy Book can be read as a commentary on the paradigm of courtly love and the gender stereotypes contained within. Larry Benson maintains that the 'strange doctrine of chivalric courtship ... fixed the vocabulary and defined the experience of lovers in our culture from the latter Middle Ages until almost out own day' (Benson 237), and therefore the characters are reflections of a poetic tradition rather than socially constituted gender stereotypes. Chaucer explores the possibility of relationships between the ideal courtly lover and the pragmatic beloved and the gender inversion contained within. Troilus is the ideal courtly lover: 'naturally' emotional and feminised, and yet unaware of the courtly system to which he conforms. It is this ignorance of the conventions and expectations of courtly love which is set up the binary between Troilus and Criseyde established in Troy Book and Troilus and Criseyde.

Works Cited

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