ABSTRACT Although Chaucer’s citation of Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s Poetria nova in Troilus and Criseyde has been frequently acknowledged, it has rarely been considered a potential source for the poem’s rich psychological characterization. This article argues that Chaucer repurposes Geoffrey’s advice on careful rhetorical control as a motif for investigating and illustrating psychological interiority in his major characters. The limitations of Pandarus’s model of rhetorical control are exposed through the unscripted scenes of Troilus and Criseyde’s initial infatuation and through the “sodeyn” success of Diomede’s rhetoric in Book 5.
Joseph Turner (Sun,) studied this question.