The ‘Vther Quair’ as the Troy Book

This chapter proposes that the ‘vther quair’ read by the narrator of Robert Henryson’s Testament of Cresseid is John Lydgate’s Troy Book. Henryson uses this device and the matter of Troy to respond thoughtfully to Lydgate’s poetics. As authors centrally interested in the lessons of good governance of the self and public, Lydgate and Henryson explore the degree to which their characters and their readers can learn lessons about behaviour. Lydgate pessimistically discourages moralization and subverts didactic poetics because he does not believe contemporary readers can learn from the errors of pagan history. Henryson, by contrast, embraces moralization to encourage readers to question and learn from his characters’ actions.