Thomas Hoccleve: Religious Reform, Transnational Poetics, and the Invention of Chaucer(Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies)

This book explores the work of the late-medieval English writer Thomas Hoccleve. It highlights Hoccleve’s role, throughout his works, as a religious writer: an individual who engages seriously with the dynamics of heresy and ecclesiastical reform, who contributes to traditions of vernacular devotional writing, and who raises the question of how Christianity manifests on personal as well as political levels. It suggests a role for Hoccleve as a poetic mediator, capable of mediating between the increasingly militant English church and an incipient English literary tradition, and it highlights Hoccleve’s role in transforming the figure of Chaucer in the first decades of the fifteenth century. It argues that the version of Chaucer presented in Hoccleve’s Regiment of Princes – august, devout, and conspicuously religious – is not a pre-formed artifact, but rather a Hocclevian invention; and it indicates the ecclesiastical, political, and literary contexts that make this version of Chaucer both possible and necessary. This study also situates Hoccleve’s accomplishments in a transnational poetic context – offering French and Italian precedents for Hoccleve’s moralization of Chaucer, while examining the influence of contemporary French poetry on Hoccleve’s work. It positions us to reconsider Hoccleve’s role within English literary tradition, and to better understand the way heresy and religious reform surface in late medieval poetry; and it affords us a more nuanced context for Chaucer’s positioning as a literary 'father' figure in this period.

Table of Contents:
List of Abbreviations Introduction 1. “What world is this? How vndirstande am I?”: Reading and Moralization in the Series   2. Vice, Virtue, and Poetic Mediation in the Epistle of Cupid   3. “What shal I calle thee? What is thy name?”: Hoccleve, Chaucer, and the Architectonics of Fame 4. Reforming Thought: The Making of “Thomas Hoccleve” 5. Hoccleve’s Eucharist Conclusion: The Matter of Hocclevian Influence     Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Sebastian J. Langdell is Assistant Professor at the Department of English, Baylor University. He is the author of Thomas Hoccleve: Religious Reform, Transnational Poetics, and the Invention of Chaucer (LUP 2018) and a founding member of the International Hoccleve Society. His work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in: New Medieval Literatures, Medium Aevum, Augustinian Studies, The Oxford History of Poetry in English, Thomas Hoccleve: New Approaches, and the Routledge Companion to Medieval English Literature.

Review :
‘For nearly 40 years Thomas Hoccleve toiled at the Privy Seal, a professional scribe stooping and staring ‘upon the sheepes skyn’ […] Langdell convincingly moves his rehabilitation forward with this thoughtful, wide-ranging and learned reassessment.' Jane Roberts, The Review of English Studies ‘The emphasis on Hoccleve’s influence in the conclusion, while quickly spelled out here, is of great importance and will hopefully serve to inspire other scholars; in particular, using Hoccleve’s religious identity to connect him with Lydgate—specifically to the Life of Our Lady—is a promising avenue of research that many others may want to pursue, and thank Langdell as they do.’ R. D. Perry, Speculum  'Langdell’s book is rich in textual comparison and includes a productive analytical range with close readings based on surviving paleographical evidence and imagery, as well as more traditional forms of textual analysis.' J. A. T. Smith, The New Chaucer Society