Medieval Autographies: The "I" of the Text

Chapter 5: Hoccleve ad the Prologue

129 C h a p t e r 5 H O C C L E V E A N D T H E P R O L O G U E of Chaucer’s many fifteenth-century followers, the one who learned most from his predecessor’s autographic writings was thomas hoccleve. hoccleve (circa 1367–1426), probably born in the same year as Chaucer’s son thomas1 and sharing his baptismal name, founded the tradition of praise of Chaucer that hails him as “father”—the father of a new kind of poetry in english, elevated in style and substance, and seen as being of national significance, an achievement that his “sons” strive in vain to match. in this chapter i discuss the part of hoccleve’s writing with which modern scholars have found it most difficult to come to terms, reconsidering the nature of its indebtedness to Chaucer and attempting to show that its various features can best be understood if it is read as autography. the work of hoccleve’s that was most widely read in the century of its composition is The Regement of Princes, probably dating from 1411; it survives in over forty manuscripts. in it he more than once laments the death of his father Chaucer: My deere maistir, god his soule qwyte, and fadir, Chaucer, fayn wolde han me taght, But i was dul and lerned lyte or naght. 130 M e d i e v a l a u t o g r a p h i e s allas, my worthy maistir honurable, this landes verray tresor and richesse, deeth by thy deeth hath harm irreparable unto us doon. . . . (2077–83)2 —— [My dear master—may god reward his soul!—and father, Chaucer, would gladly have taught me, but i was dull and learned little or nothing. alas, my worthy honorable master, the true treasure and wealth of this land!—by your death, death has done us irreparable harm . . .] the firste fyndere of our fair langage . . . allas, my fadir fro the world is go, My worthy maistir Chaucer. . . . (4978–83) —— [the first discoverer/inventor3 of our beautiful language . . . alas, my father has departed from this world, my worthy master Chaucer. . . .] in the Regement hoccleve recounts a lengthy conversation that he has with an anonymous old Man (whom he also addresses as “fadir”). the old Man asks him, “What shal i calle thee, what is thy name?” (1863), and as soon as hoccleve reveals his name he comments, sone, i have herd or this men speke of thee; thow were aqweyntid with Chaucer, pardee. (1866–67) —— [son, i have heard people speak about you before this; by god, you were acquainted with Chaucer.] acquaintance with Chaucer, then, is represented as being hoccleve ’s claim to recognition and almost his identity. From about 1387 hoccleve had been a civil servant, a clerk in the privy seal office; as such, it is likely enough that he really was hoccleve and the prologue 131 personally acquainted with Chaucer, who also held public offices, though at a somewhat higher level;4 and it could well be that he did indeed receive some kind of coaching as a writer from Chaucer. Most of hoccleve’s poetry is in the rhyme royal stanza that Chaucer introduced into english, and adaptation from Chaucer (as we shall see) is an important and pervasive element in his work. hoccleve shows a better grasp of Chaucer’s continentally derived metrics than other fifteenth-century english poets, though his verse is more precisely syllabic than his master’s. in this he must have been influenced not only by Chaucer but also by his own reading in French poetry. (his Formulary, a collection of model official documents and letters composed near the end of his life, shows that he wrote anglo-French fluently, and his earliest recorded poem of substance, the Letter of Cupid, is a witty adaptation of Christine de pizan’s Epistre au dieu d’amours.5 ) though some of hoccleve’s poems appeared in print over two centuries ago,6 it is only in the last thirty years or so that his work has aroused enthusiastic critical interest. the first editor of his collected works in printed form, the terrifyingly energetic victorian Frederick Furnivall, regarded him contemptuously as “a weak, sensitive , look-on-the-worst side kind of man,” and wished that he had been “a better poet and a manlier...