This play is very difficult to classify. Shakespeare''s plays fall generally into three (3) categories: tragedies, comedies
and histories. This play is historical in essence, although it is often classified otherwise. It details, in a short period of time, Achilles'' return to the fray and the consequent death of Hector, the love affair of Troilus, his youngest brother, and Cressida, daughter of a renegade priest, Calchas, who has her exchanged for one of the Trojan warriors and given to Diomedes.
Troilus has been traditionally viewed as the type or figure of the faithful lover, and Cressida as that of the faithless slut. But this ignores completely her status as a piece of property -- first of her father, then of Diomedes. Her attempts to remain faithful to her beloved Troilus, in spite of having been traduced into slavery by the Trojan state, is often completely overlooked. She had NO rights and at best can be accused of trying to make the best of a bad-to-impossible situation. Even in this, she is deeply conflicted -- yet Troilus''s envy of the Greeks as men and his passionate jealousy, combined with his youth and inexperience, lead him to misinterpret most of what he sees, leaving her no benefit of the doubt or recognition of circumstance.
There is a great deal of byplay about Paris and Helen and their relationship (contrasted to the family''s commitment to their marriage, and the easy sale of Troilus''s true love, Cressida), as well as that of Achilles to the other Greeks. This Play unites an ability to humanize the
relationships, attitudes and experiences of the Trojans and Greeks with enormous philosophical implications and psychological complications that lie just below the surface of what could be played and read as either tragedy or comedy -- tragicomedy, perhaps. It is funny and yet heartbreaking, and raises many questions about not only love and war, but also about relationships between men and women, the state and the individual, the various social classes and degrees, Fate and human choice, prayers to gods and human and historical consequences, and many others, as well.
One thing that is not often noted is that the Trojans were essentially fighting for women''s
freedom, particularly their freedom to choose their own husbands, and to divorce and remarry if they chose. Because they lost, it took more than two and one half millenia before women won even a measure of such freedom in our Greek-influenced Western society.
While this play is one of the least often read and discussed of all of Shakespeare''s works, it is one that deserves far more attention, especially as it seems to be one of the most freuqently quoted -- the maxims are many, the self-analysis non-existent, the ease of reading extraordinary, and its worth vastly underestimated.