Hoccleve, Lydgate, and Their Patrons
Sponsoring Organization(s)
International Hoccleve Society; Lydgate Society
Organizer Name
Taylor Cowdery
Organizer Affiliation
Univ. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Presider Name
Taylor Cowdery
Paper Title 1
Naming Names: Creating an Audience in Hoccleve and Lydgate
Presenter 1 Name
R. D. Perry
Presenter 1 Affiliation
New Chaucer Society
Paper Title 2
Monuments, Memory, and Patronage in Lydgate's Guy of Warwick
Presenter 2 Name
Mimi Ensley
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Univ. of Notre Dame
Paper Title 3
Imperial and Literary Lineage in Lydgate's Troy Book
Presenter 3 Name
Leah Schwebel
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Texas State Univ.-San Marcos
Paper Title 4
Respondent
Presenter 4 Name
Robert J. Meyer-Lee
Presenter 4 Affiliation
Agnes Scott College
Start Date
11-5-2018 10:00 AM
Session Location
Fetzer 2020
Description
There’s much to tie Thomas Hoccleve and John Lydgate together: a shared language, political life under both Ricardian and Lancastrian rule, a purported love for “father” Chaucer, and—perhaps most important—a single network of patrons and benefactors. Their poetic accounts regarding the lived experience of this common ground, however, could not be more different. As Robert Meyer-Lee has observed, Lydgate is, in social and economic terms, “the kind of poet” that Hoccleve failed to become. Where Hoccleve repeatedly describes seeking and not finding steady patronage, Lydgate managed to do so with apparent ease; where Hoccleve’s works apart from the Regiment of Princes appear to have circulated only in modest numbers, Lydgate’s verse found great favor among a variety of audiences, including merchants, craftsmen, scholars, and the nobility. This panel reassesses Hoccleve and Lydgate’s shared literary moment by focusing, in particular, on their varied relationship to patronage. Sample questions that might be explored include the following: Does Lydgate view Prince Hal in the same way that Hoccleve does? How do Lydgate and Hoccleve select or manage their patrons, particularly in light of the dangerous currents of the Lancastrian court? Why, for example, is the Fall of Princes dedicated to Duke Humphrey (in the case of Lydgate) or the Series dedicated to a shifting set of patrons (in the case of Hoccleve)? And to what extent may Lydgate and Hoccleve be said to deploy what John Burrow has termed “petitionary poetics?”
Taylor H. Cowdery
Hoccleve, Lydgate, and Their Patrons
Fetzer 2020
There’s much to tie Thomas Hoccleve and John Lydgate together: a shared language, political life under both Ricardian and Lancastrian rule, a purported love for “father” Chaucer, and—perhaps most important—a single network of patrons and benefactors. Their poetic accounts regarding the lived experience of this common ground, however, could not be more different. As Robert Meyer-Lee has observed, Lydgate is, in social and economic terms, “the kind of poet” that Hoccleve failed to become. Where Hoccleve repeatedly describes seeking and not finding steady patronage, Lydgate managed to do so with apparent ease; where Hoccleve’s works apart from the Regiment of Princes appear to have circulated only in modest numbers, Lydgate’s verse found great favor among a variety of audiences, including merchants, craftsmen, scholars, and the nobility. This panel reassesses Hoccleve and Lydgate’s shared literary moment by focusing, in particular, on their varied relationship to patronage. Sample questions that might be explored include the following: Does Lydgate view Prince Hal in the same way that Hoccleve does? How do Lydgate and Hoccleve select or manage their patrons, particularly in light of the dangerous currents of the Lancastrian court? Why, for example, is the Fall of Princes dedicated to Duke Humphrey (in the case of Lydgate) or the Series dedicated to a shifting set of patrons (in the case of Hoccleve)? And to what extent may Lydgate and Hoccleve be said to deploy what John Burrow has termed “petitionary poetics?”
Taylor H. Cowdery