Schibanoff, Susan. “Prudence and Artificial Memory in Chaucer's Troilus.”

Schibanoff, Susan. “Prudence and Artificial Memory in Chaucer's Troilus.” ELH: A Journal of English Literary History 42.4(1975): 507-517.

Schibanoff examines Chaucer’s attention to physical setting Troilus and Criseyde and also his placement of setting before action in Troilus’ recollection of his time together with Criseyde after she has been handed over to the Greeks. She relates this to a technique used by medieval orators for delivering long speeches solely from memory. This technique involved visualizing a series of places, inventing a series of images representing various parts of the speech, and then associating each image with a different place. The speech could then be recalled by essentially moving through one’s imagination to each of the various places. This, Schibanoff argues, is essentially what Troilus is doing in his recollection, and by having Troilus revisit earlier settings, Chaucer forces the audience to do the same. The audience, however, Schibanoff states, has been conditioned to associate a different set of images with these settings. Not only that, but the audience is also given a different perspective from which to view these settings. By the constant reminders that fortune’s wheel must take a downward turn, the audience is given knowledge of the eventual fates of Troilus and Criseyde. She goes on to argue that in Troilus’ recollection, there is a sense that he is coming to the realization that he will never see Criseyde again and this narrows the gap between the audience and Troilus, making him seem more sympathetic throughout Book V. By the end of Book V, however, Troilus has outdistanced even the audience and achieved a sort of divine knowledge that frees him from the human desire to resist unpleasant outcomes. Schibanoff, however, is unclear on which of these views Chaucer seems to sympathize with, but she closes by stating that it could possibly be both.

Available on Jstor.