Chaucer's «Troilus and Criseyde»: A Poet's Response to Ockhamism

Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde invites philosophical speculation because of its Boethian and nominalist elements. This study comprehensively reviews Ockhamism and its possible influence on Chaucer in his version of the Troy story. A close analysis of the anachronistic characterizations of Troilus, Criseyde, and Pandarus and of the images, words and discourse of the poem leads to the conclusion that Chaucer was a traditional scholastic thinker, thereby making the poem an artistic negative response to the skeptical philosophy of his time.