Troilus and Cressida (mobi) by Geoffrey Chaucer - Reviews don't necessarily apply to the edition you are looking at

This is an electronic edition of the complete book complemented by author biography. This book features the table of contents linked to every chapter. The book was designed for optimal navigation on the Kindle, PDA, Smartphone, and other electronic readers. It is formatted to display on all electronic devices including the Kindle, Smartphones and other Mobile Devices with a small display.

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Troilus and Criseyde (circa 1380-87) is Geoffrey Chaucers poem in rhyme royal (rime royale) re-telling the tragic love story of Troilus, a Trojan prince, and Criseyde. Scholarly consensus is that Chaucer completed Troilus and Criseyde by the mid 1380s. Many Chaucer scholars regard this as his best work, even including the better known but incomplete Canterbury Tales.

Troilus and Criseyde is an example of a courtly romance, and although it does contain many common features of the genre, generic classification is an area of significant debate in most Middle English literature. The character Troilus is mentioned once in Homer as a valiant son of Priam who died in combat, but the actual story is of Medieval origins and first written by Beno?t de Sainte-Maure in his poem Roman de Troie; Boccaccio re-wrote the story in his Il Filostrato which in turn was Chaucers main source. Shakespeares Troilus and Cressida was based in part on Chaucers poem. The poem was continued by Robert Henryson in his Testament of Cresseid wherein Henryson, displeased by Chaucers rather humane treatment of Criseyde, is determined to punish her more openly for her unfaithfulness.

The relationship between Chaucers Troilus and his source material (Il Filostrato) is discussed extensively by C. S. Lewis in The Allegory of Love. Briefly, Chaucers poem reflects a less cynical and less misogynistic world-view than Boccaccios; his Pandarus is well-intentioned and his Criseyde sincere but fearful, rather than simply fickle. The sadness of the story is also lightened by humour.

? Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.??

Reviews don't necessarily apply to the edition you are looking at
Amazon seems to be including all the reviews of different editions and translations of Chaucer's "Troilus and Criseyde" on the same page. If you read the reviews here you will be very confused. Some refer to an original language edition (either the one made by R. A. Shoaf or Stephen Barney's Norton Critical edition), and some refer to a translation, at least one to the translation done by Nevill Coghill. The reader needs to pay careful attention to what edition is actually on the screen when making a selection.

If you want to read the original text, I would recommend Stephen Barney's edition. Barney is the editor who made the critical edition for the Riverside Chaucer, and his Norton Critical edition includes ten excellent critical essays in addition to Chaucer's poem, Giovanni Boccaccio's "Il Filostrato" (Chaucer's source), and Robert Henryson's "Testament of Crisseid." Shoaf's edition is also good, but twice as expensive, and it does not have as much contextual material. Coghill is a fine translator of Chaucer, and for the reader who does not want to tackle the Middle English he will provide an adequate experience. But beware: His smooth couplets sound more like Alexander Pope than the vigorous medieval writer he is translating.

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