Troilus and Criseyde in Comparison to Hippolytus Corin DuBois College

In Troilus and Criseyde, a poem which presents tragedy as a necessary component of love, Chaucer explains that fortune, the planets, and free will all control the fall of the protagonist. These forces, none of which lead to his ultimate benefit, exist in two different forms, forces aligned with human control, and forces controlled by the divine. Similarly, the Decameron identifies Fortune as a product of the divine’s will, interchangeable with the uses of the words Nature, Fate, or God. In Greek plays, the inability to manufacture one’s own fortune leaves a character often with ill fate. Specifically, in Hippolytus, rejection of the divine’s will is returned with an abundance of persecution, as shown by Phaedra’s pitiful demise. Between Troilus and Criseyde, the Decameron, and Hippolytus, the opposing forces of Fortune versus human choice are presented as the sole cause of tragedy in a protagonist’s life.

In order to analyze aspects of Fortune in the respective texts, it is pertinent to understand the understand its most universally accepted definition. The most significant example, yet not the most obvious, comes from Troilus and Criseyde, where the text says, “But, O Fortune, Executrice of wierdes” (3.617). The word “wyrd”, a...