Troilus and Criseyde (Penguin Classics);

Chaucer's longest complete poem is the supreme evocation of doomed courtly love in medieval English literature. Set during the tenth year of the siege of Troy, the poem relates how Troilus - with the help of Criseyde's wily uncle Pandarus - persuades her to become his lover, only to be betrayed when she is handed over to the Greek camp and yields to Diomede.