The Double Role of Criseyde in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde

Critics of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde have over the years pondered the character of Criseyde. F.N.Robinson, whose comments and references throughout his edition indicate his familiarity with Chaucerian scholarship, wrote that Chaucer's Criseyde "is one of the most complex of his creations. This is made apparent by the very disagreements of the critics in their search for a key to her character." More recently, Ida L. Gordon in 1970 spoke of the "teasing enigma of her behavior," and Robert apRoberts, in a preface to his essay on "Criseyde's Infidelity," noted: "Another essay on Chaucer's Criseyde might seem as redundant as another essay on Hamlet." Yet this Mona Lisa-like figure continues to provoke attempts (to paraphrase Hamlet) "to pluck out the heart of her mystery."