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Risk, Distrust, and Ingratitude in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida
- SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 52, Number 2, Spring 2012
- pp. 345-362
- 10.1353/sel.2012.0022
- Article
- Additional Information
- Purchase/rental options available:
In Troilus and Cressida, cynical expectations about the political, military, or amatory behavior of others (as if on Hobbesian premises, which were foreshadowed by Jean Bodin) breed a debilitating sense of risk and distrust. Within both Greek and Trojan camps, perceptions that society is disintegrated, ungrateful, and false in its valuations debase the contests for honor into protective-yetfutile self-seeking. The lovers, Troilus and Cressida, feel vulnerable before each other, all the more in having confessed their weaknesses. As in one game-theory strategy, all seek the lesser (and illusory) gain to avert the damage that other parties may do.