Pandarus and Troilus’s Bromance: Male Bonding, Sodomy, and Incest in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde

The present article demonstrates how Pandarus and Troilus’s relationship in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde is a medieval representation of a bromance wherein an incestuous act between Pandarus and Criseyde is among the many ways the poem utilizes heterosexuality to counter the homoerotic implications between the two men. The bromance model presents a new critical angle that clarifies how Chaucer is able to use an ostensibly queer homosocial bond to drive the poem’s action.