TROILUS AND CRESSIDA

drama in five acts by William Shakespeare, performed about 160102 and printed in a quarto edition from a fair copy, possibly the author's, in 1609. Although this play is included among the tragedies in the First Folio, many critics prefer to classify it with the problem plays or the dark comedies. Based on George Chapman's translation of the Iliad and on 15th-century accounts of the Trojan War by John Lydgate and William Caxton, Troilus and Cressida is an often cynical exploration of the causes of strife between and within the Greek and Trojan armiesthe betrayal of love, the absence of heroism, and the emptiness of honour. The play was also influenced by Geoffrey Chaucer's love poem Troilus and Criseyde, although Shakespeare's treatment of the lovers and his attitude toward their dilemma is in sharp contrast with Chaucer's. Cressida, a Trojan woman whose father has defected to the Greeks, pledges her love to Troilus, one of King Priam's sons. However, when her father demands her presence in the Greek camp, she quickly switches her affections to Diomedes, the Greek soldier who is sent to escort her. The legendary Greek hero Achilles is depicted as petulant and self-centred, and Agamemnon is a foolish windbag. Thersites, a deformed Greek, comments wryly on the actions of the other characters, while Pandarus, the bawdy go-between of the lovers, enjoys watching their degradation. The drama ends on a note of complete moral and political disintegration, allowing none of the characters to rise above their foolish behaviour. The play cannot be called a comedy because it does not end on a hopeful note, but it lacks the scope and intensity of a tragedy. The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge remarked that there is none of Shakespeare's plays harder to characterize.