2. Considering the way Shakespeare
appropriates this story that goes back to the
Antiquity, is it viable to ask whether his take
on this love story of legendary and mythical
status renders him a scoffer, alongside
Pandarus and Thersites?
Was his intention really that of debasing the
tale as narrated by Chaucer ?
3. Professor
Tatlock has come up with an apt
answer by writing that:
Shakespeare came to the material of this
play, then, precisely as he came to that of the
English historical plays, finding incidents and
characters largely fixed beforehand, and too
intracvtable to be greatly modified, even had
he wished to modify them. It is a historical
play, in the Elizabethan sense, that it should
be regarded; often serious, sometimes
verging on the tragic, but pervaded with
comedy.
4. Whatis implied in this statement is that the
subversive and burlesque elements which
can be regarded as intrinsic to the play,
were not introduced by Shakespeare.
Being a poem, Chaucer’s version is
definitely more lyrical especially in the
portrayal of the two lovers’ relationship,
however there still is an underlying spirit of
high comedy and irony which could not be
comprehended, let alone engaged with by
the Elizabethan audience
5. Chaucer’s
Pandarus is perhaps the
embodiment of this subversive nature of the
poem.
Despitecoming across as the most dramatic
character, he paradoxically evolves into a
low comedy, almost a farcical figure.
In
one of the very first enactments of the
poem (on Twelfth Night of 1515/16 by the
Children of the Chapel Royal of Ethan),
Pandar degenerates into a clown.
6. Writers with a flair for the burlesque or
the so-called vulgar makers, tended not
only to undercut the protagonists’
virtuousness as presented in the original
stories, they also took delight in
amplifying the vices of both the same
protagonists and the secondary
characters
Apartfrom Skelton’s contribution to
Cressida’s notoriety, this satirical
element can also be detected in a ballad,
written by a professional versifier in 1565
7. Despite the poet’s ostensible loyalty to
Chaucer’s text, the poem comes across as
strikingly similar to Shakespeare’s play as
Halliwell-Philips claims.
Justas Shakespeare’s Pandarus acts with
great derision when trying to bring the two
lovers together, in this poem, Pandarus is
depicted as a shallow and bawdy
character who after literally putting Troilus
in Cressida’s bed is convinced that he has
gained his niece’s trust and respect while
winning Troilus’ gratification: For he had
what he lust-a
8. Dr
Small and Miss Porter’s analyses of
Shakespeare’s treatment of Pandarus is
somewhat erroneous
While the former believed that Shakespeare
adopts the character of Pandarus from
Chaucer without change , the latter thought
that Shakespeare re-created him in a gay,
gross, shrewd, and worldly courtier-type
peculiarly his own, despite the nucleus of
older suggestion.
9. Shakespeare doesn’t in any way elevate
Pandarus from common noundom, as these
critics are suggesting.
The change in characterisation Shakespeare
affects is rather aimed at making him appear
more like a scoffer
Likehis predecessors who portrayed
characters in away that befitted the names if
the seven deadly sins they were usually
given, Shakespeare adopts the same
technique and adjusts his character as if to
do justice to his spiteful name
