Healy, 'Thomas Hoccleve', Bryn Mawr Medieval Review 9504
URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/bmmr/bmmr-9504-healy-thomas

@@@@95.4.3, Burrow, Thomas Hoccleve

John A. Burrow.  <i>Thomas Hoccleve</i> (Authors of the Middle Ages:  English
Writers of the Late Middle Ages; no. 4).  Aldershot, Hants: Variorum, 1994.
Pp. iv, 60.  Paper $15.00.  ISBN 0-86078-419-3.
     Reviewed by Christopher A. Healy, Louisiana State University

As the fourth volume in a series of studies on Middle English authors--
numbers 1-3 examine, in order, Sir John Mandeville, John Trevisa, and
William Langland--this study of Thomas Hoccleve seems best suited to the
series' goal of presenting "an account of the facts of a particular
author's life."  We know a great deal about Hoccleve both from documentary
sources of his public life and from literary references to his private life
found in his poetry, more, in fact, "than about most vernacular writers of
the period" (1).  In his <i>Speculum</i> (69.4, 1271-2) review of the first
series volume, Iain Higgins questions what possible biographical
information can be presented about Langland or the <i>Gawain</i>-poet (covered
in the second series) and what need beyond "updating the bibliographies" to
be found in existing sources the series fills.  The Hoccleve volume, at
least, is a valuable tool for certain Hoccleve researchers. The first
thirty-one pages of the book are dedicated to a written account of the
poet's life and work, both literary and professional, with the next
eighteen consisting of a table of dates and a citation of the sixty-one
known contemporary documents referring to Hoccleve.  Finally, the work ends
with a bibliography that includes all known manuscripts of Hoccleve's
works, modern editions, and a selective bibliography of secondary sources.

     The strength of this book is not, for the most part, in the newness
of any of the material to be found in its pages.  Burrow takes what is
already known or speculated and constructs a quite readable account of
Hoccleve's life.  And even if the basic material is already published in
various sources, one need only begin with this volume to get an overview of
the present state of Hoccleve studies, after which, using Burrow's
bibliography and the earlier two by Jerome Mitchell (1968; 1984) and one by
William Matthews (1972)--all three pointed out by Burrow--one can begin
more in-depth research.  Yet Burrow's work is not simply repetitious review
of previous scholarship, for he interprets what has been said into a
chronology and a reading based upon the often contradictory foregoing
studies.  Moreover, Burrow makes valid observations about Hoccleve
criticism, such as his assertion that"The <i>Formulary</i>, representing as it
does the substance of Hoccleve's working life, has interest for readers of
his poetry as well as for historians" since "the frequency of complaint and
petition in Hoccleve's poetry . . . conform
sY, albeit often in distinctive
style, to the common practice of the time" (5-6).

     The Appendix consists of sixty-nine references to Hoccleve in
contemporary documents, including the fifty-three printed by Furnivall in
1892 and the seven additional references included in Mitchell and Doyle's
1970 revision of Furnivall's work.  The nine other citations (nos. 3, 9,
12, 13, 23, 60, 67, 68, and 69) come from more recent scholarship, such as
that of Paul Strohm or A. L.  Brown (n. 13 and n. 118).  In all, these
references combine to create a timeline for the poet's public life and make
up the basis for the life Burrow paints in the previous section, as well as
some of the dating of Hoccleve's poems.

Burrow's Bibliography is easy to follow in its listing of manuscripts, and
it updates that in <i>A Manual of Writings in Middle English</i>, including as
it does the Yale manuscript, which was discovered several years after
Matthews' bibliography appeared.  The presentation is also easier to follow
than Matthew's unwieldy system.  Burrow heads each section with the work's
title, then subdivides by subgroup, conflation, extract, and fragment. The
list of Early Printed Editions and Modernizations and that of Modern
Editions looks to be complete, but it does neglect to mention the
facsimiles of the Bodleian Library MSS. Fairfax 16 and Tanner 346.

     The slight shortcoming of this volume is in the section on Secondary
Sources.  Burrow says that "The bibliography is selective for the period
up to 1965," as well it can afford to be considering Mitchell's exhaustive
previous work; and Mitchell's later follow-up leaves about only thirteen
years uncovered.  Consulting the MLA International Bibliography using
"Hoccleve" as a keyword, I found eight citations for this period not
included in Burrow's own bibliography.  Two of these are from 1993,
however, and though Burrow does include citations from that year, these
two may have come out too late to be included.  In Burrow's favor it
should be pointed out that he lists works that do not come up with the
keyword, more than those he excludes. 

     One who has done much work with Hoccleve will, admittedly, find
little new material in this book, but the scholar approaching Hoccleve for
the first time could not do better than to start with this work.
Furthermore, the currency of its bibliography and its citation of all
known contemporary records referring to Hoccleve make it useful for even
the veteran Hoccleve researcher.