Troilus and Cressida

Troilus and Cressida is often referred to as one of Shakespeare’s “problem plays,” a play that is complex, ambiguous, and difficult to categorize as comedy, tragedy, or history. Other problem plays are Measure for Measure (1604) and The Winter’s Tale (1611), though some critics even include Hamlet (1601) and The Merchant of Venice (1605) in the category. The term “problem play” did not exist in Shakespeare’s time; all the plays in the first folio were described as comedies, tragedies, and histories (Troilus and Cressida was deemed a tragedy).

The term “problem play” was first used in the 19th century to describe the realistic, open-ended plays of dramatists like Henrik Ibsen. Noticing the similarities between Ibsen’s drama and certain Shakespearean plays, the critic F. S. Boas applied the term to these Shakespearean works as well. As Boas’s categorization suggests, the most problematic of Shakespeare’s plays are also his most modern and existentialist works. Unlike a comedy, in which social harmony is restored at the end of the play, or a tragedy, in which the audience experiences an emotional release, in a problem play, there is no neat or conclusive ending. There is little catharsis or emotional resolution to be found.

In Troilus and Cressida, the tragic events—Hector’s death and Cressida’s betrayal of Troilus—are presented without any overt moral lessons. An anti-heroic, anti-romantic strain runs through the play, stopping it from being tragic in the classic sense. The tragedy is presented as meaningless. Thus, the play differs from a classical Shakespearean tragedy like King Lear (1606) or Macbeth (1611). It also cannot be classified as a history, like Henry V (1599), since it is based not on a historical figure but on characters from an epic.

Not only is the play hard to categorize by genre, its characters also display inconsistencies that are at odds with dramatic harmony. Characters often reverse their stances without sufficient explanation, ending in very different places from where they began. Key dramatic moments are not followed through on occasion, leading to a feeling of anticlimax. For instance, Hector’s challenge is built up through the play, but the resulting bout with Ajax is over before it begins. While these narrative choices were seen as oddities for a long time, making Troilus and Cressida one of Shakespeare’s lesser-known and less frequently performed plays, critics now deem the play as ahead of its time. They argue that the odd narrative choices are deliberate, meant to highlight the arbitrariness and disorder of existence. Further, the play examines personhood as performance, with characters aware they have a private and a public self. Thus, the inconsistency is Shakespeare’s way of drawing attention to the modern, divided self.