Abstract
The celebration of the joy of the lovers in the third book of Troilus and Criseyde has by an unintended irony become the battleground of the central controversy in the present criticism of medieval poetry. D. W. Robertson considers that the Troilus, in common with medieval love poetry as a whole, bears witness to the Augustinian doctrine of the two loves: love of self (cupidity) and love of God (charity). The love that is celebrated in the third book of the Troilus is a cupidinous love, and is accordingly reprehended by the poet: Chaucer's most famous love story, the tragedy of Troilus and Criseyde, is neither a tale of true love, ofwhatJehan le Bel called love 'par amours', nor of courteous love. It is, rather, a tale of passionate love set against a background of Boethian philosophy.... The Boethian elements in Troilus and their implications were ... easily recognizable to the members of Chaucer's audience. And no one reminded of the doctrines of Fortune and Providence, fate and free will, the love of God and the love of worldly goods, or the Herculean nobility and heroism of virtue, could possibly regard passionate love for a fickle woman with anything but disfavor.1
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