Ruin Representations and the Trojan War in {i}Troilus and Cressida{/i}

Vassiliki Markidou

Ruin Representations and the Trojan War in Troilus and Cressida

Vassiliki Markidou

From Engaging with Troy: Early Modern and Contemporary Scenes (2026), pp. 77-90, doi:10.59860/t.c59f686

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William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright

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Homer (c. 850 BCE?), Greek poet

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Part of the book: Engaging with Troy

Edited by Francesca Rayner and Janice Valls-Russell

Transcript 27

Legenda

RenaissanceEnglishDramaFictionopen

Abstract. Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida (1602?) is not quite a history. An enigmatic play, meditating on ruin and dissolution, it pivots on the behaviour of individual martial heroes, and on their fallibility. At the time of its first staging, the Earl of Essex, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Sir Philip Sidney, among others, had all recently fallen in battle or been disgraced; and the chilling fate of fallen cities in the Netherlands, racked by Spanish wars, lay well within the living memory of Londoners. As the archetypal fallen city, Troy served as a warning, and as a symbol of this turbulent world.

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