Hoccleve, Thomas | D. C. Greetham (essay date 1989)
D. C. Greetham (essay date 1989)
SOURCE: Greetham, D. C. “Self-Referential Artifacts: Hoccleve's Persona as a Literary Device.” Modern Philology 86, no. 3 (1989): 242-51.
[In the essay below, Greetham places Hoccleve between Chaucer and Robert Burton (author of Anatomy of Melancholy) on a continuum extending from medieval writers to post-modern authors like John Fowles and Woody Allen. Comparing Hoccleve to both earlier and later authors, Greetham argues that Hoccleve could be fruitfully considered a Menippean satirist in the tradition of Boethius.]
Until very recently, we took Thomas Hoccleve at his word. When he claimed to have “lewde speche” and “yonge konynge,”1 C. S. Lewis agreed.2 When he accused himself of “meetrynge amis” on account of his poor eyesight,3 H. C. Schulz readily concurred.4 When he insisted that he was “but a repertour / of folkes...
[The entire page is 6080 words long]
Navigate
