Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- PART I THE INVENTION OF HERESY
- PART II THE LATE FOURTEENTH CENTURY: CANONIZING WYCLIFFISM
- PART III THE EARLY FIFTEENTH CENTURY: HERETICS AND EUCHARISTS
- 5 Thomas Hoccleve's heretics
- 6 John Lydgate's eucharists
- PART IV FEELING WYCLIFFITE
- PART V EPILOGUE
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index of manuscripts cited
- General index
- CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL LITERATURE
5 - Thomas Hoccleve's heretics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- PART I THE INVENTION OF HERESY
- PART II THE LATE FOURTEENTH CENTURY: CANONIZING WYCLIFFISM
- PART III THE EARLY FIFTEENTH CENTURY: HERETICS AND EUCHARISTS
- 5 Thomas Hoccleve's heretics
- 6 John Lydgate's eucharists
- PART IV FEELING WYCLIFFITE
- PART V EPILOGUE
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index of manuscripts cited
- General index
- CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL LITERATURE
Summary
An adherent of the most rigid orthodoxy may be demonic.
KierkegaardHaving investigated Geoffrey Chaucer's relation to Wycliffism in the previous chapter, it seems appropriate now to turn to a figure who is often credited for establishing much of the Chaucer tradition, Thomas Hoccleve. Yet while Hoccleve extols Chaucer as his “maister” (1962, 4983) and indicates a personal acquaintance with the earlier poet (1866–67), he is careful to demonstrate quite a different relationship than Chaucer to Wycliffism. He does not follow Chaucer into the Wycliffite territories of vernacular translation theory, nor does he elaborate upon or notice Chaucer's endlink to the Man of Law's Tale, in which the Parson is called a “lollard” by the Host in a seemingly fond usage to which the Shipman reacts virulently (see Chapter 4, 75–79). And in view of Chaucer's deft handling of anticlerical materials in such tales as the Friar's Tale and the Summoner's Tale – treatments that have provoked comment from the Reformation to the present day about Chaucer's potential Wycliffite interests – Hoccleve avoids matters that would seem the least bit heterodox. We cannot, in other words, look to Chaucer as a mediator of Wycliffite problems for Hoccleve, despite the fact that he turned to Chaucer frequently to think through other social and cultural topics largely of a secular sort.
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- Literature and Heresy in the Age of Chaucer , pp. 103 - 130Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008