Filostrato
"Il Filostrato" is a poem by the Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio, and the inspiration for Geoffrey Chaucer's ''Troilus and Criseyde'' and, through Chaucer, the Shakespeare play ''Troilus and Cressida''. It is itself loosely based on '' Le Roman de Troie'', by 12th-century poet Benoît de Sainte-Maure. ''Il Filostrato'' is a narrative poem on a classical topic written in "royal octaves" (''ottava rima'') and divided into eight cantos. The title, a combination of Greek and Latin words, can be translated approximately as "laid prostrate by love". The poem has a mythological plot: it narrates the love of Troilo (Troilus), a younger son of Priam of Troy, for Criseida (Cressida), daughter of Calcas ( Calchas). Although its setting is Trojan, Boccaccio's story is not taken from Greek myth, but from the ''Roman de Troie'', a twelfth-century French medieval re-elaboration of the Trojan legend by Benoît de Sainte-Maure known to Boccaccio in the Latin prose version by Guido delle Colon ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Troilus
Troilus ( or ; grc, Τρωΐλος, Troïlos; la, Troilus) is a legendary character associated with the story of the Trojan War. The first surviving reference to him is in Homer's '' Iliad,'' composed in the late 8th century BCE. In Greek mythology, Troilus is a young Trojan prince, one of the sons of King Priam (or Apollo) and Hecuba. Prophecies link Troilus' fate to that of Troy and so he is ambushed and murdered by Achilles. Sophocles was one of the writers to tell this tale. It was also a popular theme among artists of the time. Ancient writers treated Troilus as the epitome of a dead child mourned by his parents. He was also regarded as a paragon of youthful male beauty. In Western European medieval and Renaissance versions of the legend, Troilus is the youngest of Priam's five legitimate sons by Hecuba. Despite his youth he is one of the main Trojan war leaders. He dies in battle at Achilles' hands. In a popular addition to the story, originating in the 12th ce ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Decameron
''The Decameron'' (; it, label= Italian, Decameron or ''Decamerone'' ), subtitled ''Prince Galehaut'' (Old it, Prencipe Galeotto, links=no ) and sometimes nicknamed ''l'Umana commedia'' ("the Human comedy", as it was Boccaccio that dubbed Dante Alighieri's ''Comedy'' "''Divine''"), is a collection of short stories by the 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375). The book is structured as a frame story containing 100 tales told by a group of seven young women and three young men; they shelter in a secluded villa just outside Florence in order to escape the Black Death, which was afflicting the city. Boccaccio probably conceived of the ''Decameron'' after the epidemic of 1348, and completed it by 1353. The various tales of love in ''The Decameron'' range from the erotic to the tragic. Tales of wit, practical jokes, and life lessons contribute to the mosaic. In addition to its literary value and widespread influence (for example on Chaucer's '' Canterbury Ta ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Giovanni Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio (, , ; 16 June 1313 – 21 December 1375) was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he became so well known as a writer that he was sometimes simply known as "the Certaldese" and one of the most important figures in the European literary panorama of the fourteenth century. Some scholars (including Vittore Branca) define him as the greatest European prose writer of his time, a versatile writer who amalgamated different literary trends and genres, making them converge in original works, thanks to a creative activity exercised under the banner of experimentalism. His most notable works are '' The Decameron'', a collection of short stories which in the following centuries was a determining element for the Italian literary tradition, especially after Pietro Bembo elevated the Boccaccian style to a model of Italian prose in the sixteenth century, and '' On Famous Women''. He ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fiammetta
Maria d'Aquino (died in 1382) was a Neapolitan noblewoman who is traditionally identified with Giovanni Boccaccio's beloved and muse Fiammetta (Italian for "little flame"). Maria d'Aquino was a “royal bastard”, an illegitimate daughter of Robert the Wise, King of Naples and Count of Provence. She was an accomplice in the 1345 murder of King Andrew, the husband of her niece and Robert's successor, Queen Joanna I. For this Maria was sentenced to death and beheaded in 1382 on the orders of Queen Joanna I's successor, King Charles III. Boccaccio wrote about Maria d'Aquino and their relationship in several of his literary works. She is traditionally identified as Fiammetta. According to him, Maria's mother was a Provençal noblewoman, Sibila Sabran, wife of Count Thomas IV of Aquino. She was born after Countess Sibila and King Robert committed adultery at his coronation festivities in 1310, but was given the family name of her mother's husband. Her putative father placed her ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pandarus
Pandarus or Pandar (Ancient Greek: Πάνδαρος ''Pándaros'') is a Trojan aristocrat who appears in stories about the Trojan War. In Homer's ''Iliad'' he is portrayed as an energetic and powerful warrior, but in medieval literature he becomes a witty and licentious figure who facilitates the affair between Troilus and Cressida. In Shakespeare's play ''Troilus and Cressida'', he is portrayed as an aged degenerate and coward who ends the play by telling the audience he will bequeath them his "diseases". Classical literature In Homer's ''Iliad'', Pandarus is a renowned archer and the son of Lycaon. Pandarus, who fought on the side of Troy in the Trojan War and led a contingent from Zeleia, first appeared in Book Two of the ''Iliad''. In Book Four, he is tricked by Athena, who wishes for the destruction of Troy and assumes the form of Laodocus, son of Antenor, to shoot and wound Menelaus with an arrow, sabotaging a truce that could potentially have led to the peacefu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Troilus And Criseyde
''Troilus and Criseyde'' () is an epic poem by Geoffrey Chaucer which re-tells in Middle English the tragic story of the lovers Troilus and Criseyde set against a backdrop of war during the siege of Troy. It was written in '' rime royale'' and probably completed during the mid-1380s. Many Chaucer scholars regard it as the poet's finest work. As a finished long poem it is more self-contained than the better known but ultimately unfinished '' The Canterbury Tales''. This poem is often considered the source of the phrase: "all good things must come to an end" (3.615). Although Troilus is a character from Ancient Greek literature, the expanded story of him as a lover was of Medieval origin. The first known version is from Benoît de Sainte-Maure's poem '' Roman de Troie'', but Chaucer's principal source appears to have been Boccaccio, who re-wrote the tale in his '' Il Filostrato''. Chaucer attributes the story to a "Lollius" (whom he also mentions in '' The House of Fame''), ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Troilus And Cressida
''Troilus and Cressida'' ( or ) is a play by William Shakespeare, probably written in 1602. At Troy during the Trojan War, Troilus and Cressida begin a love affair. Cressida is forced to leave Troy to join her father in the Greek camp. Meanwhile, the Greeks endeavour to lessen the pride of Achilles. The tone alternates between bawdy comedy and tragic gloom. Readers and theatre-goers have frequently found it difficult to understand how they are meant to respond to the characters. Frederick S. Boas has labelled it one of Shakespeare's problem plays. In recent years it has "stimulated exceptionally lively critical debate". Characters The Trojans * Priam, King of Troy * Priam's children: Cassandra (a prophetess), Hector, Troilus, Paris, Deiphobus, Helenus, and Margarelon (bastard) * Andromache, Hector's wife * Aeneas, a commander and leader * Antenor, another commander * Calchas, a Trojan priest who is taking part with the Greeks * Cressida, Calchas's daughter * ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Roman De Troie
(''The Romance of Troy'') by Benoît de Sainte-Maure, probably written between 1155 and 1160,Roberto Antonelli "The Birth of Criseyde - An Exemplary Triangle: 'Classical' Troilus and the Question of Love at the Anglo-Norman Court" in Boitani, P. (ed) ''The European Tragedy of Troilus'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press) 1989 pp.21-48. is a 30,000 line epic poem, a medieval retelling of the theme of the Trojan War. It inspired a body of literature in the genre called the , loosely assembled by the poet Jean Bodel as the Matter of Rome. The Trojan subject itself, for which de Sainte-Maure provided an impetus, is referred to as the Matter of Troy. ''Le Roman de Troie'' influenced the works of many in the West, including Chaucer and Shakespeare. In the East it was translated into Greek as ''The War of Troy'' (), by far the longest medieval Greek romance. Of medieval works on this subject, only Guido delle Colonne's ''Historia destructionis Troiae'' was adapted as frequently. Benoît's so ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ottava Rima
Ottava rima is a rhyming stanza form of Italian origin. Originally used for long poems on heroic themes, it later came to be popular in the writing of mock-heroic works. Its earliest known use is in the writings of Giovanni Boccaccio. The ottava rima stanza in English consists of eight iambic lines, usually iambic pentameters. Each stanza consists of three alternate rhymes and one double rhyme, following the ABABABCC rhyme scheme. The form is similar to the older Sicilian octave, but evolved separately and is unrelated. The Sicilian octave is derived from the medieval strambotto and was a crucial step in the development of the sonnet, whereas the ottava rima is related to the canzone, a stanza form. History Italian Boccaccio used ''ottava rima'' for a number of minor poems and, most significantly, for two of his major works, the ''Teseide'' (1340) and the ''Filostrato'' (c. 1335). These two poems defined the form as the main one to be used for epic poetry in Italian ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cressida
Cressida (; also Criseida, Cresseid or Criseyde) is a character who appears in many Medieval and Renaissance retellings of the story of the Trojan War. She is a Trojan woman, the daughter of Calchas, a Greek seer. She falls in love with Troilus, the youngest son of King Priam, and pledges everlasting love, but when she is sent to the Greeks as part of a hostage exchange, she forms a liaison with the Greek warrior Diomedes. In later culture she becomes an archetype of a faithless lover. Character history The character's name is derived from that of Chryseis, a character who appears in the '' Iliad'' but has no connection with Troilus, Diomedes or Calchas. Indeed, the story of Troilus and Cressida does not appear in any Greek legends but was invented by the twelfth century French poet Benoît de Sainte-Maure in the '' Roman de Troie''. The woman in the love triangle is here called not Cressida but Briseida, a name derived from that of Briseis, a different character in the ''I ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Poem
Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, a prosaic ostensible meaning. A poem is a literary composition, written by a poet, using this principle. Poetry has a long and varied history, evolving differentially across the globe. It dates back at least to prehistoric times with hunting poetry in Africa and to panegyric and elegiac court poetry of the empires of the Nile, Niger, and Volta River valleys. Some of the earliest written poetry in Africa occurs among the Pyramid Texts written during the 25th century BCE. The earliest surviving Western Asian epic poetry, the '' Epic of Gilgamesh'', was written in Sumerian. Early poems in the Eurasian continent evolved from folk songs such as the Chinese ''Shijing'', as well as religious hymns (the Sanskr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Diomedes
Diomedes (Jones, Daniel; Roach, Peter, James Hartman and Jane Setter, eds. ''Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary''. 17th edition. Cambridge UP, 2006.) or Diomede (; grc-gre, Διομήδης, Diomēdēs, "god-like cunning" or "advised by Zeus") is a hero in Greek mythology, known for his participation in the Trojan War. He was born to Tydeus and Deipyle and later became King of Argos, Peloponnese, Argos, succeeding his maternal grandfather, Adrastus. In Homer's ''Iliad'' Diomedes is regarded alongside Ajax the Great and Agamemnon, after Achilles, as one of the best warriors of all the Achaeans (Homer), Achaeans in prowess (which is especially made clear in Book 7 of the ''Iliad'' when Ajax the Greater, Diomedes, and Agamemnon are the most wished for by the Achaeans to fight Hector out of nine volunteers, who included Odysseus and Ajax the Lesser). Subsequently, Diomedes founded ten or more Italian cities and, after his death, was worshipped as a divine being under various ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |