Troilus and Criseyde (Penguin Classics)

Chaucer’s longest complete poem is the supreme evocation of doomed courtly love in medieval English literature. Set during the tenth year of the siege of Troy, the poem relates how Troilus – with the help of Criseyde’s wily uncle Pandarus – persuades her to become his lover, only to be betrayed when she is handed over to the Greek camp and yields to Diomede.