Troilus and Criseyde, one of the most beautiful and one of the longest of Chaucer's poems, was written between the years 1379 and 1383, when the author was in his early forties. Derived principally from Giovanni Boccaccio's Il Filostrato and the Historia Troiae of Guido delle Colonne, it containes exquitse translations from Petrarch and Dante. Numerous editions have appeared since that of Thomas Thynne in 1532, and the poem now takes its rightful...

At Troy during the Trojan War, Troilus and Cressida begin a love affair. Cressida is forced to leave Troy to join her father in the Greek camp. Meanwhile, the Greeks endeavour to lessen the pride of Achilles. The tone alternates between bawdy comedy and tragic gloom. Readers and theatre-goers have frequently found it difficult to understand how they are meant to respond to the characters. Frederick S. Boas has labelled it one of Shakespeare's problem...

Set during the later years of the Trojan War, faithfully following the plotline of the Iliad from Achilles' refusal to participate in battle, to Hector's death. Essentially, two plots are followed in the play. In one, Troilus, a Trojan prince (son of Priam), woos Cressida, another Trojan.