Thomas Hoccleve's Collected Shorter Poems: A Critical Edition (1422-26)

FAIN: FT-285980-22

Sebastian James Langdell
Baylor University (Waco, TX 76798-7284)

Research and writing leading to a critical edition of the shorter poems of Thomas Hoccleve written between 1422 and 1426.

This project will produce the first modern critical edition of the first author-curated “collected poems” in the English language, by the medieval English poet Thomas Hoccleve (d. 1426). The poems are preserved in two manuscripts—and, in a truly rare occurrence, both are in Hoccleve’s own hand. Although medieval French authors had produced career-spanning collections of their own poems, no English writer—not even Chaucer—had attempted anything similar until Hoccleve. The collection includes some of the earliest experiments in autobiography, and explorations of gender, subjectivity, heresy, and theological complexity. This project will be the missing piece in creating a complete, up-to-date corpus of Hoccleve’s work, and will make a significant contribution to the fields of English, philosophy, medieval studies, political studies, transnational literature, and theology. The edition is under contract and will be published by Liverpool University Press.