Troilus and Cressida

Set seven years into the war fought between the Greeks and the Trojans over the theft of Menelaus’s wife, Helen, by Trojan prince Paris, Troilus and Cressida offers a relentless critique of war in general. The impetus behind the war—at least by the time the play begins—is neither patriotism nor love nor even a desire for glory, but shallow egotism and base materialistic gain. The Greeks struggle to maintain discipline among their…

In the relentlessly bitter and satirical world of Troilus and Cressida, love isn’t grand, romantic, or ennobling. Instead, it’s portrayed as a debasing emotion that is bound up with shallow lust and selfishness. Troilus depends on the support and help of Cressida’s uncle, Pandarus, to make his way into her bed. After they’ve had sex, he evidently can’t wait to leave her house in the morning. And although he frets about Cressida’s…

The story of Troilus and Cressida can be generalized as the exchange of two women: Helen, the Greek who becomes Trojan by virtue of her abduction by Paris, and Cressida, the Trojan who is taken from her city and placed in the Greek camp. This exchange happens thanks to the commodification of each woman, by the common assent of the men around them—a commodification that the play depicts as violently dehumanizing as…

Very few of the key plot points in Troilus and Cressida would have been a surprise to the play’s original audience, thanks to the popularity of Trojan War stories in early modern England. The play instead generates drama by placing its audience in the position of Cassandra, the Trojan prophetess whom no one believes: they know what will happen and can do nothing to change it. Within this framework, the play examines the violent…