Thomas Hoccleve
Thomas Hoccleve, also known as Occleve, was an English poet born around 1367, who is noted for his autobiographical poetry and his connection to the literary tradition of his time. Spending most of his life in London, he worked for over thirty years in the Privy Seal Office, where he eventually became a senior clerk. Hoccleve had a background that was initially intended for the priesthood, but his poetry reflects a life of youthful indulgence and personal struggles, which he openly detailed in his works. He was inspired by Geoffrey Chaucer, whose influence can be seen in Hoccleve's writing style.
His earliest notable poem is the "Letter of Cupid," written in 1402, while his most significant work is the "Regement of Princes," a moral treatise aimed at the future Henry V. Throughout his career, he produced a series of writings, often exploring themes of self-reflection and personal challenges. Despite facing difficulties, including a long illness, Hoccleve's literary contributions were well-regarded, with numerous manuscripts of his works surviving today. He eventually retired to the Priory of Southwick, where he passed away between 1426. Hoccleve's legacy remains significant in the context of early English poetry and the development of autobiographical writing.
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Thomas Hoccleve
Poet
- Born: c. 1367
- Birthplace: Probably in Hockliffe, Bedfordshire, England
- Died: May 1, 1426
Biography
Thomas Hoccleve, or Occleve, was probably born in 1367, since he gave his age as fifty-three in a poem that was probably written in 1420. Nothing is known of his family or education, but he seems to have spent almost all his life in London, living in the neighborhood of Chester’s Inn, and he was fluent in both French and Latin. He was apparently intended for the priesthood, but his autobiographical poetry—of which he was a pioneer—represents his youth as a dissolute period in which he was unfit for that vocation (although it did allow him to make the acquaintance of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer, whose seven-line stanzas provided his primary poetic model).
At the age of nineteen or twenty, Hoccleve became a clerk in the Privy Seal Office, beginning as an underclerk but eventually rising to become one of half a dozen senior clerks. He found it very irksome, but worked there for more than thirty years, leaving behind a carefully organized set of more than a thousand model documents for reference by his successors. He became visible to history by virtue of the office’s records, which reveal that in 1399, Henry IV—shortly after succeeding to throne—granted him an annuity of ten pounds, which was increased by a third in 1409.
Hoccleve’s first datable poem is the 1402 Letter of Cupid, based on a French original by the female poet Christine de Pisan. His most significant early work was the 1406 La Male Règle, which is formulated as a petition for payment of salary but expands into an autobiographical lament in which he confesses various vices, including regular acquaintance with the taverns of Westminster and a foolish devotion to fashions in clothing. He subsequently used it as a prologue to his most famous work, an advisory homily addressed to Henry, Prince of Wales (the future Henry V), to whom William Shakespeare subsequently attributed a similar youthful waywardness. The work in question, written in 1411 and titled Regement of Princes, was based on the De regimine principum of Aegidius Romanus and the Secreta Secretorum of Jacobus de Cassolis; its two thousand lines also include a eulogy to its poetic model, Chaucer. It was widely copied; no fewer than forty-three manuscripts survive.
Most of Hoccleve’s subsequent writings belong to an incomplete project that subsequent commentators dubbed the Series, whose introduction claims that it was begun after his recovery from a dire illness suffered in 1414. It includes, among other items, two verse renditions of stories borrowed from the Gesta Romanorum, and a Dialogue with a Friend (c. 1420), which is significant in adding further self-pitying reminiscences to Hoccleve’s eccentric canon. He had apparently married in middle age, after giving up all hope of obtaining a living in the church, although there is no other record of his wife. Following his retirement from the Privy Seal Office in 1424, he lived in the Priory of Southwick in Hampshire until he died, sometime between March 4 and May 8, 1426.