'My Compleinte' and Other Poems

Description

Thomas Hoccleve (1368-426) was one of Chaucer's first disciples and is represented in this book by a selection of his works, newly edited from his own copies and fully annotated. It provides students and other readers new to his work with a very fair indication of his range and achievement as original writer and translator and includes a full Introduction and marginal glosses. It also offers those more familiar with his work a fuller account than has hitherto been available of the manuscripts both of Hoccleve's own texts and, when he was translating from Latin or French, of his sources. Some of the themes and topics explored, with Hoccleve's light and witty touch, include women (for them or against them); money (always short of it, and as likely as not to be paid in counterfeit coin); isolation and suffering (causes various, but always painful); the pains of hell and the joys of heaven; the serendipitous nature of literary production; the writer as translator, reporter, or even as gossip. Cover Title Page Copyright Page Contents Frontispiece Acknowledgements Sigla of Manuscripts and Other Abbreviations Introduction Notes Editorial Principles A Note on Hoccleve’s Language Minor Verse I. 'Conpleynte paramont' Notes II. 'La male regle de T. Hoccleue' Notes III.'Balade et chanceon. . . a mon meistre H. Somer' Notes IV.'Balade. . . [pour] mon meistre Robert Chichele' Notes V. 'Item de beata Virgine' Notes VI.'L'epistre de Cupide' Notes VII. The Series 1. 'My compleinte' Notes 2. 'A dialoge' Notes 3. 'Fabula de quadam imperatrice Romana' Notes 4. 'Ars vtillissima sciendi mori' Notes 5. 'Fabula de quadam muliere mala' Notes Appendices 1. The stanzas added to the 'Conpleynte paramont' in the Middle English Pilgrimage of the Soul 2A. A comparison of the version of Hoccleve's first Gesta narrative with selected Latin and Middle English analogues 2B. The source of Hoccleve's 'Balade. . . translatee au commandement de. . . Robert Chichele.' 3. The glosses to 'Ars vtillissima sciendi mori' in S and D 4. Additional notes on the textual relations of the non-holograph copies of the 'Conpleynte paramont', 'Epistre de Cupide' and the Series 5. Selected variants from the non-holograph manuscript copies of the texts here edited Bibliography Editions of texts or selections Secondary literature