'WHAT WORLD IS THIS? HOW VNDIRSTANDE AM I?' A REAPPRAISAL OF POETIC AUTHORITY IN THOMAS HOCCLEVE'S "SERIES"

Abstract

Aftir þat heruest inned had his sheeues,And þat the broun sesoun of MighelmesseWas come, and gan the trees robbe of hir leeues,Þat greene had been and in lusty fresshnesse,And hem into colour of yelownesseHad died and doun throwen vndir foote,Þat chaunge sank into myn herte roote.1These lines, wHch begin Thomas Hoccleve's Series, have been described as the opeHng to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales transposed into a minor key.2 Rather than begin his poem amid the 'shoures soote' and budding bulbs of April, Hoccleve chooses as his starting point the bitter cold and withering leaves of autumn. Chaucer begins his poem eagerly awaiting a pilgrimage, whereas Hoccleve lies in bed 'vexid' by a 'thoghtful maladie' (C, line 21). Far from boasting Chaucer's 'ful devout corage', Hoccleve bemoans his lack of 'lust' and his 'langour'.3 By the end of his prologue, he has reversed the tone of Chaucer's opeHng entirely. He chooses to 'brast out on the morwe' not because of, but despite his surroundings. And unlike Chaucer, who gears up for a pilgrimage, Hoccleve sits down and begins to write. This instance of writing despite the bleakness of one's surroundings serves as a fitting introduction to the Series - a work that depicts the compromised state of English poets about two decades after Chaucer's death.Hoccleve was writing the Series between 1419 and 1426, a period of considerable unrest for the English nation.4 In 1422 Henry V died, leaving the English throne to his Hne-month-old son. Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, struggled with John, Duke of Bedford, for the tide of Protector, while England continued its war with France and its ongoing battle against heresy.5 Fresh in the collective English memory was the Council of Constance (1414- 18), which saw attempts by delegates from Italy, France, Spain, Germany, and England to reform the Christian Church in 'head and members', to end the papal schism, and to censure the heterodox views of heretics like John Wyclif and Jan Hus.6 As England was 'home' to the Wycliffite heresy, it became a political necessity for Lancastrian spokesmen to stress England's 'return' to a simpler and more orthodox Christian faith in order to differentiate between the strong, reform-minded English nation and weak, heterodox interlopers like Wyclif. The idea of a 'pure' faith to wHch one could return was necessary if only to position heterodox views within the opposing camp of the impure. In order to be politically useful and therefore politically popular, English poets needed to participate in this game of polarizing people and ideas. In more political pte-Series poems like 'To Sir John Oldcasde', we see Hoccleve using the right language for this: he emphasizes the military prowess of the orthodox and the intellectual weaknesses of the heretics; he appeals to authorities like Justinian and Constantine and thereby links the English Church with a Christian tradition far removed from hazardous, contemporary attempts at theological enquiry.7In the Series, however, Hoccleve indicates how this polarization of good and bad, pure and impure, orthodox and heterodox, can compromise the quality of poetry produced. At one point in the 'Dialogue' section of the Series, Hoccleve offers a detailed description of the death of a flower and he positions it between a series of allusions to Chaucer.8 It becomes hard not to link the image of the withering flower and the words 'farwel colour'9 to Hoccleve's earlier autumnal rendition of The Canterbury Tales' prologue and, indeed, to his own distance from Chaucer, his so-called 'flour of eloquence'.10 What Hoccleve fears most, it seems, is that the cold wind of political scrutiny will reduce even poetry to a matter of right or wrong, moral or immoral, wHte or black - that it will attempt to rob poetry of its many gradations of meaning.As we shall see, the Series does much to indicate that this may be happening. Particularly when discussing Hoccleve's poem 'The Epistle of Cupid', Hoccleve's Friend11 insists on there being only one possible interpretation, and refuses to entertain any alternative, even though the alternative in question is put fordi by none other than the author himself. …