"Of ful gret sadnes": The Presentation of Feminine Grief, Sorrow, and Mourning in John Lydgate's Troy Book

Looking to the work of the medieval poet and monk John Lydgate (1370-1451), this thesis seeks to identify the way in which various female Troy Book characters express and represent the multifaceted experience of grief. Spanning across three chapters, this thesis identifies Medea’s anticipatory grief regarding her union with Jason, Cassandra’s national and anticipatory grief in prophesying the fall of Troy, and Penthesilea’s revenge-focused, chivalric grief following the murder of Hector as critical points in analyzing medieval womanhood alongside a sorrowful war narrative. Acknowledging the overlap between Troy Book’s predecessors (the Iliad, Geoffrey Chaucer, Guido delle Colonne, etc.) and the text itself, this study shows that Lydgate’s presentation of female grief is not only indicative of the women’s roles in the text but also reflects his familiarity with discourses of femininity in the Middle Ages. Through textual analysis of select Middle English passages from Lydgate’s Troy Book, this thesis explores the foundations of these women’s grief and offers ample insight into the text itself, as well as perceptions of medieval grief as a whole.