SHAKESPEARE is my Homeboy

Troilus and Cressida criticism summary

Mallin, Eric S. "Emulous Factions and the Collapse of Chivalry: Troilus and Cressida" Representations 29 Winter 1990

Mallin begins his essay by drawing a parallel between the political moment of Elizabeth's reign in England and the political environment which is reflected in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida. Mallin argues that "the neurosis of invasion made England something of a Troy" (Mallin 146). In section one of his essay, Mallin argues that Elizabeth's encouragement of competive "emulous factions" within her Court, as a "method of rule" (Mallin 146) is also reflected throughout Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida. Mallin articulates his thesis as follows: "In Troilus and Cressida, Shakespeare transforms a de facto Elizabethan policy and its unforeseen consequences into a central plot complication of the Trojan war story" (Mallin 147). Specifically, Mallin argues that the "failure" of Chivalry and the tension with female authority (specifically the power of Helen to lead the Trojans into war) is seen reflected both in Elizabethan England as it is in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida.

Mallin focuses his examination of the tensions of Elizabethan chivalry and politics through a study of Robert Devereaux, the second Earl of Essex. He begins by citing the 1598 translation of The Iliad, by George Chapman, in which Chapman praises the Earl of Essex as "Achilles" thus mythifying the Elizabethan court and his role in it. Mallin highlights the irony and tension implicit in this reference by explaining that while Achilles was the greatest warrior of the Greeks, he was also "a terrific nuisance"(Mallin 150). As evidence of this, Mallin points out how Essex resisted Elizabeth's orders in his execution of the wars in Ireland. One of the areas in which men were most resistant to female authority in both Elizabethan England and Troy was in the area of war. "In Troy," Mallin argues, "the failure of the chivalric mode is related to profound resentment of the woman for whom the nobles fight" (Mallin 158). As Mallin points out, this same tension can be seen in the relationship between Elizabeth and Essex in their disagreements specifically over the Irish wars.

Mallin goes on to show how this resistance to female authority demonstrates itself in the preferencing of homosocial relationships in Troilus and Cressida which has as it root, (in part) "fears of inadequency and doubts about female constancy" (Mallin 161). As Mallin argues, "the certain failure, the disaster of heterosexual relations that is the Trojan War story enforces a presumptive preference for homosocial configurations in this text" (Mallin 163).

In section IV of his essay, Mallin tries to articulate how the preferencing of homosocial bonds can be linked to the Elizabeth court. He defines this phenomenon again in the person of the Earl of Essex. "War," Mallin argues, "was…a homosocial escape route from the power of his monarch" (Mallin 165). Ultimately, in the final section of his essay, Mallin argues that the contradictions and tensions apparent in the relationship between Elizabeth and Essex are a model of the tensions also apparent in Troilus and Cressida. "Through and around the Devereaux crux, Troilus and Cressida dramatizes a world riven by its own implacable conflicts" (Mallin 169).