Character Analysis Of Troilus And Cressida English Literature Essay

Comedy is a mixture of the festive and the ironic of a drive toward a renewed society along with a strong emphasis on the arbitrary whims and absurdities that block its emergence. William Shakespeare’s play begins during the late times of the Trojan War. In the year of 1602 is when it is believed that Troilus and Cressida was written, shortly after the completion of Hamlet. In the 1600s the story was a popular one for dramatists and Shakespeare might have been inspired by contemporary plays. Troilus and Cressida is a so-called “problem play” and is known as one of best tragedies. Around this time when William Shakespeare wrote Troilus and Cressida they renamed the Lord Chamberlain’s Men as the King’s Men. The development of characterization in William Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida between Troilus and Cressida reveals drama, tragedy, and romance.

Traditionally Troilus and Cressida has been considered one of William Shakespeare’s most problematic works. As it was a history for the Quarto title-page and tragedy in the Folio it was being designated in its earliest publication. Perhaps William Shakespeare’s most intellectually rigorous drama has been recognized over the most, is through Troilus and Cressida. The Scholars wishes that William Shakespeare use the two forms of language: the language of love and the language of war in Troilus and Cressida.

“Call here my varlet; I’ll unarm again: Why should I war without the walls of Troy,

That find such cruel battle here within? Each Trojan that is master of his heart, Let him to field; Troilus, alas! hath none.”

In the play Troilus and Cressida, Troilus is the only one of William Shakespeare’s acting figures. With Troilus’s profanity mouth tells the audience the bond between love and war. When he is not with the Greeks in battle, he is confused with words to say and passionate with manhood towards Cressida. Who was a naïve, but honorable knight who was abused by the disgraceful, loyal in affections of a woman. Another chorus-figure is Pandarus, a Trojan procurer who sings the most vernacular song that William Shakespeare ever wrote, and to the audience who is in the epilogue to the play passed on his sexual diseases. Ancient writers treated Troilus as the condensed account of a dead child grieving by his parents. He was also regarded and compared to a young beautiful man. Once the custom of courtly love had faded, his fate was regarded less affectionate. Troilus, the son of Hecuba and queen of Troy is youthful boy. As he is so beautiful, Troilus is taken to be the son of the god Apollo. However, Hecuba’s husband, King Priam, treats him as his own much-loved child.

“O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus,–When I do tell thee, there my hopes lie drown’d Reply not in how many fathoms deep They lie indrench’d. I tell thee I am mad

In Cressid’s love: thou answer’st ‘she is fair;’ Pour’st in the open ulcer of my heart Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice,Handlest in thy discourse, O, that her hand, In whose comparison all whites are ink, Writing their own reproach, to whose soft seizure

The cygnet’s down is harsh and spirit of sense Hard as the palm of ploughman: this thou tell’st me, As true thou tell’st me, when I say I love her; But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,

Thou lay’st in every gash that love hath given me The knife that made it.”

Cressida has been known as a sexual pawn in the avaricious world of the play in Troilus and Cressida. The only way she can make men drool over her is through self-respect. Written in rhyme-royal, Cressida employs the standard motifs of courtly romance-love at first sight, prolonged secret courtship, pining suitor, coy buy merciful mistress- which require little comment. Some elements hold back against the honor or romantic love. Cressida is a satirical imitation by Troilus, exposing courtly love as a well-being and overthrowing game. In speaking of Cressida, Arlene N. Oker-lund has observed that “until well into the twentieth century, something of a consensus of interpretation existed… Cressida was a prostitute deserving only scorn for the evils she perpetrated. Certainly the narrator’s interpolations, the reflections and actions of the characters themselves, suggest that love stands as the highest earthly good, not only bringing happiness but improving the moral being of the lover. Indeed, love so ennobles Troilus,

“That swich a vois was a hym and a stevene, Thorughout the world, of honour and largesse , That it up rong unto the yate of hevene … He was, and ay, the first in armes dyght, And certeynly, but if that bokes erre, Save Ector most ydred of any wight; And this encrees of hardynesse and might Com hym of love, his ladies thank to wynne That altered his spirit so withinne.”

Drama, tragedy, and romance develop characterization in William Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida between Troilus and Cressida. During the Trojan was Priam’s younger son fell in love with the lovely and unapproachable Cressida, Priam’s niece. Daughter of Calchas, Trojan priest, gone over to the Greeks side. Troilus goes to her uncle Pandarus, a Trojan lord, to tell him that he would refrain from fighting the Greeks as long as there was turmoil in his heart. The story is a medieval tale that is not part of the Greek mythology. They have sex, professing their undying love, before Cressida is exchanged for a Trojan prisoner of war. As he attempts to visit her in the Greek camp, Troilus glimpses Diomedes flirting with his beloved Cressida, and decides to avenge her perfidy. The play is one of William Shakespeare’s problem plays, because it is not conventional tragedy, since its protagonist (Troilus) does not die.