A Double Sorrow: A Version of Troilus and Criseyde
About this ebook
The captivating love story of ill-fated Troilus and Criseyde, first popularized by Chaucer’s poem in the 1380s, is one of the most enduring stories of the English language. In A Double Sorrow, award-winning poet Lavinia Greenlaw breathes fresh life into the medieval tale through a series of seven-line stanzas, which mimic the form of Chaucer’s original poem.
Set during the siege of Troy, A Double Sorrow is the story of the Trojan hero Troilus and his beloved Criseyde, whose traitorous father defects to the Greeks and persuades them to ask for his daughter in an exchange of prisoners. Troilus suggests that Criseyde flee with him, but she knows she will be universally condemned and instead pretends to submit to the exchange while promising Troilus that she will find a way to return to him within ten days. But once in the company of the Greeks, she soon realizes the impossibility of her promise to Troilus and in despair succumbs to another.
In this series of skillfully crafted poetic vignettes, Greenlaw illuminates each small but irrevocable step as these characters argue each other and themselves into and out of love. The result is a breathtaking and shattering read, contemporary and timeless.
About the author
Lavinia Greenlaw was born in London, where she has lived for most of her life. Her poetry includes The Casual Perfect and Minsk, which was shortlisted for the TS Eliot, Forward and Whitbread Prizes. She has also published novels? and two works of non-fiction: The Importance of Music to Girls and Questions of Travel: William Morris in Iceland. A Double Sorrow was shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award, and she has also received a NESTA fellowship and the Ted Hughes Award, among other honors. Her interest in image-making and questions of perception, both central to Troilus and Criseyde, led to her studying seventeenth-century Dutch art at the Courtauld Institute and becoming the first artist-in-residence at the Science Museum.
