What Chaucer really did to Il Filostrato : the ending of the Troilus and its Italian sources

Abstract

The implicit rebuke to C.S. Lewis conveyed by my title, which repeats verbatim the seven words of the title of Lewis's essay, italicizing the third, is offered in a spirit of collegial playfulness. It is my view that the ending of the Troilus, upon which so much attention has been lavished, can only be adequately understood if we are willing to pay precise attention to its careful series of allusions to previous texts, particularly those of Boccaccio and Dante - if not to these alone. I am aware that the present argument is not likely to find many Chaucerians willing to accept some of its premises or findings. I thus entreat the reader to give the analysis that follows a fair hearing; we all must agree that the concluding portion of the Troilus is complex and difficult. It may benefit from a new approach, one based in an understanding of its relation to passages in three of its most illustrious Italian precursors, Boccaccio's Filostrato, his Teseida, and Dante's Commedia.