A Double Sorrow: Troilus and Criseyde

LAVINIA GREENLAW, A Double Sorrow: Troilus and Criseyde. London: Faber & Faber, 2014. Pp. 217. isbn: 978-0-571-28454-2. £16.99.

Lavinia Greenlaw's newest work, which she terms 'not a version, and certainly not a translation, but an extrapolation' (iii) of the story of Troilus and Criseyde, is a beautiful, incisive utterance in the poetic tradition of making old things new again. Joining a long list of writers who have also reinvented this exploration of catastrophic courtship in verse, Greenlaw's A Double Sorrow: Troilus and Criseyde, draws most heavily on Chaucer and Giovanni Boccaccio. Perhaps the most important material Greenlaw draws on, however, are her own talents as a poet. Shaping a fresh catalog of images, vigorous syntax, and sharp lines over the available scaffolding, Greenlaw's 'extrapolation' is surprising, endlessly readable, and, above all, good poetry.

In reinventing such a well-known poem, Greenlaw structures her work as a series of short, seven-line stanzas based very loosely on Chaucer's rime royal. Each titled stanza is set alone on a page, and the resulting white space around it underscores the precision and directness of her language. Additionally, the reader encounters each stanza along with a compass of signs Greenlaw arranges on the page below it: a note on which particular lines by either Chaucer or Boccaccio...