This article examines the role of calkas in troilus and criseyde, paying particular attention to his influence on the exchange in book iv and his importance for diomede in book v. by comparing troilus with its vernacular and latin precedents, we show that chaucer makes calkas both the voice of historical determinism and a locus of individual agency, both a knowing authority and an untrustworthy schemer. chaucer's troilus questions the certainty and inevitability of calkas' prophecy, a skepticism that also affects the narrator's posture of self-representation, diomede's appropriation of the past, and the poem's conception of “gret auctorite.”
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.