Troilus and Criseyde

Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer are widely regarded as one of his more influential works, alongside The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer wrote this poem in a rime royal, a unique stanza form introduced in his works. Rime royal consists of seven-line stanzas written in iambic pentameter and has been employed by poets such as William Shakespeare and William Wordsworth. It also served as the basis for the Spenserian stanza, first introduced by Edmund Spenser. Chaucer wrote Troilus and Criseyde in Middle English sometime during the 1380s. Chaucer's work, like Shakespeare's after him, could touch both the common people and nobles at Court; for this reason, courtly romances like Troilus and Criseyde gained popularity among different classes. Although the story had been told before in France and Italy, Chaucer's version is slightly less cynical and misogynistic. In the centuries that followed, many writers referenced Chaucer's version of the story, including Shakespeare, who brought it to the stage as Troilus and Cressida.