SOURCE: "'So Unsecret to Ourselves': Notorious Identity and the Material Subject in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida," in Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 4, Winter, 1989, pp. 413-23, 33-40.

In the excerpt below, Charnes discusses how Shakespeare represents his characters in Troilus and Cressida and examines the distinctions between public and private forms of desire in the play.

. . . 1 have a mortal fear of being taken to be other than I am by those who come to know my name.. . . Praise a hunchback for his handsome figure, and he is bound to take it as an insult. If you are a coward and people honor you as a valiant man, is it you they are talking about? They take you for another.

Montaigne, On Some Verses of Virgil

This is, and is not, Cressid.

Troilus (5.2.145)

Troilus' bitter remark as he watches Cressida in the Greek camp may reveal his stupefaction, his inability to...