“[L]ike a fountain stirred”: Impure Hospitality in Troilus and Cressida

Abstract

The story of the gift of the wooden horse which brought about the destruction of Troy is one of the oldest cautionary tales of hospitality in Western literature. Shakespeare’s approach to the Trojan War in Troilus and Cressida also emphasises the problematic interrelationship between hospitality and violence. This article argues that Shakespeare uses the metaphors of dirt and pollution to explore the complexity of the hospitality relationship. Through analysis of Troilus and Cressida, and by drawing on the writings of Jacques Derrida, I will illustrate how pollution is central to the play’s conceptualisation of wartime hospitality, as well as becoming a means of satirising the arbitrary nature of the conflict.