Troilus and Cressida (Vol. 83) - Matthew A. Greenfield (essay date summer 2000)
Matthew A. Greenfield (essay date summer 2000)
SOURCE: Greenfield, Matthew A. “Fragments of Nationalism in Troilus and Cressida.” Shakespeare Quarterly 51, no. 2 (summer 2000): 181-200.
[In the following essay, Greenfield argues that by depicting Troy as decadent and corrupt in Troilus and Cressida, Shakespeare undercut England's efforts to build national pride by connecting its ancestry as a nation to the heroic and ancient city of Troy.]
Literary critics largely agree that Shakespeare's history plays raised troubling questions about who qualified as a member of the national community.1 Problematic cases include: the Scots, the Welsh, and the Irish; bastards; ethnic half-breeds; foreign brides; women generally; and sometimes all non-aristocrats. Still, though, despite these questions and anxieties, Shakespeare's tetralogies and the other English history plays move toward closures in which the nation heals and...
[The entire page is 10010 words long]
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