Troilus and Cressida
Written by Geoffrey Chaucer
Narrated by Jonathan Keeble
5/5
()
About this audiobook
Written in the 1380s, it presents Troilus, son of Priam and younger brother of Hector, as a Trojan warrior of renown who sees, and falls deeply in love with, the beautiful Cressida. Cressida is the daughter of Calchas, a Trojan priest and seer who, having divined the eventual fall of Troy, has deserted to Agamemnon's camp, leaving his daughter in the besieged city. With the help of Pander, friend to Troilus and uncle to Cressida, the young couple meet and merge - but with unhappy consequences.
Chaucer's long poem is cast in seven-line rhymed stanzas and is eased out of Middle English to be presented here in a lively modern verse translation by George Philip Krapp, who has retained not only the structure but its spirit. Emotions run high, the love is intense, the story unfolds with a dramatic urgency that draws the listener ever onwards; yet Chaucer is Chaucer, and there are times when a deft line, a light insinuation, suggests the smile, the benevolence and the immediacy of the author of The Canterbury Tales.
Troilus and Cressida, though often overshadowed by the Tales and time (and even Shakespeare, who took up the story) is a monument in its own right in the canon of English literature. Once listened to it will never be forgotten.
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer (1340s-1400) was an English poet and civil servant. Born in London to a family of wealthy vintners, Chaucer became a page to a noblewoman as a teenager, gaining access to the court of King Edward III. He served in the English army at the beginning of the Hundred Years’ War, was captured during the siege of Rheims, and returned to England after a sizeable ransom was paid by the king. Afterward, he travelled throughout Europe, married Philippa de Roet—with whom he had four children—and eventually settled in London to study law. In 1367, Chaucer joined the royal court of Edward III, serving in a variety of roles while also writing his earliest known poem, The Book of the Duchess. In 1373, following a military expedition in Picardy, he visited Genoa and Florence where he is believed to have met both Petrarch and Boccaccio, who introduced him to the Italian poetry that would heavily influence the form and content of his own work. Chaucer was appointed to the role of comptroller of customs for the port of London in 1374, a position he would hold for the next twelve years. He is believed to have written The Canterbury Tales—his most important work and an early masterpiece of English literature—in the early 1380s, was appointed clerk of the king’s works in 1389, and, in the last decade of his life, lived on an annual pension granted him by King Richard II. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, and is recognized today as the father of English literature.
More audiobooks from Geoffrey Chaucer
The Canterbury Tales: A Retelling Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Canterbury Tales Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Canterbury Tales II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Knyghte's Tale Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Canterbury Tales III Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Troilus and Cressida
Related audiobooks
The Poetry Hour - Volume 19 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShakespeare: The Rome Quartet: Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, Titus Andronicus Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Poetry of the 17th Century - Volume 1 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Knyghte's Tale Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Praise of Folly/Against War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAlcestis (Way Translation) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Poet Laureates Volume 1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIdylls Of The King Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Essays: Or Counsels Civil and Moral Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTamburlaine the Great, Part 1 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Faerie Queene Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poetry of John Dryden: England's first Poet Laureate that turned literature in Restoration England into "the Age Of Dryden" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTrachiniai (Campbell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poetry of the 17th Century - Volume 2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPerceval: The Story of the Grail Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Satyricon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPiers Plowman: The Vision of a People's Christ Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Poetry of Edmund Spenser Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Headlong Hall Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWessex Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWilliam McGonagall Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWalden, and Civil Disobedience Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Uncommercial Traveller (Unabridged) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Golden Ass or Metamorphoses Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Buddha and the Sahibs: The men who discovered India's lost religion Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAcharnians (Billson Translation) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Eclogues and Georgics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFour Arthurian Romances Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Story Of Shakespeare's Cymbeline Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Poetry For You
The Iliad: A New Translation by Caroline Alexander Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beowulf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pretty Boys Are Poisonous: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beowulf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Prophet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Spirits in Bondage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Classic Hundred Poems: All-Time Favorites Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gift of Rumi: Experiencing the Wisdom of the Sufi Master Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tao Te Ching: A New English Version Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Raven Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beowulf: A New Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Milk and Honey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poetry of Walt Whitman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: with Pearl and Sir Orfeo Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Metamorphoses Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beowulf: Translated by Seamus Heaney Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Inferno of Dante Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gilgamesh: A New English Version Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rumi's Little Book of Life: The Garden of the Soul, the Heart, and the Spirit Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Poems of T.S. Eliot Read by Jeremy Irons Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Black Imagination: Black Voices on Black Futures Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sun and Her Flowers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad: The Fitzgerald Translation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Strength In Our Scars Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Inferno - Dante Alighieri Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHome Body Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5W. B. Yeats: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Raven and Other Poems: Classic Tales Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Troilus and Cressida
1 rating0 reviews