T & C Key Themes

• Fortune is constantly metaphorized and symbolised throughout the poem; Fortune as a wheel (structural device - 5 books track the movement of the wheel, book 3 as the top of the wheel); Fortune as a capricious goddess; Fortune as blind.
• Fortune: a device to explore the course of life OR to explore actions and the consequences of actions
• What determines actions or fate?

  Predetermined? Human meddling? Society?
• T&C contains a  nexus of ideas of agency and control - true of the narrator as well → what are the limits of authorial control?
• Love: can you have a meaningful, material love with the force of Fortune
• celestial/divine love and human love
• Craft of love; a science that you need to learn → Troilus is taught how to address his lady, almost comparable to medieval texts discussions of hunting - exploring how you get to love; questioning and interrogating courtly lover notions
• The religion of love - metaphorizing love as a God; troilus is like a heretic to the religion and must be subjected to it
• • Consent and agency; is Criseyde making a free choice when choosing to be with Troilus - social expectations; multi-causal path to her deciding to be with Troilus