{"product_id":"troy-unincorporated","title":"Troy Unincorporated","description":"\u003cp\u003eFrancesca, Abbate. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003eA meditation on the nature of betrayal, the constraints of identity, and the power of narrative, the lyric monologues in\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eTroy, Unincorporated\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eoffer a retelling, or refraction, of Chaucer’s tragedy\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eTroilus and Criseyde\u003c\/i\u003e. The tale’s unrooted characters now find themselves adrift in the industrialized farmlands, strip malls, and half-tenanted “historic” downtowns of south-central Wisconsin, including the real, and literally unincorporated, town of Troy. Allusive and often humorous, they retain an affinity with Chaucer, especially in terms of their roles: Troilus, the good courtly lover, suffers from the weeps, or, in more modern terms, depression. Pandarus, the hard-working catalyst who brings the lovers together in Chaucer’s poem, is here a car mechanic.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e            Chaucer’s narrator tells a story he didn’t author, claiming no power to change the course of events, and the narrator and characters in\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eTroy, Unincorporated\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003estruggle against a similar predicament. Aware of themselves as literary constructs, they are paradoxically driven by the desire to be autonomous creatures—tale tellers rather than tales told. Thus, though\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eTroy, Unincorporated\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003efollows Chaucer’s plot—Criseyde falls in love with Diomedes after leaving Troy to live with her father, who has broken his hip, and Troilus dies of a drug overdose—it moves beyond Troilus’s death to posit a possible fate for Criseyde on this “litel spot of erthe.”\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"The House Tuscaloosa","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43111941046406,"sku":null,"price":4.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0264\/2745\/7620\/files\/TroyUnincorporated.jpg?v=1770847545","url":"https:\/\/the-house-tuscaloosa.myshopify.com\/products\/troy-unincorporated","provider":"The House Tuscaloosa","version":"1.0","type":"link"}