Occleve, Thomas (Hoccleve)

(?1370-?1450)

   Next to John Lydgate (see entry), he is the most significant English poet of the 15th century (both of them knew Chaucer). Little is known of his life, but for many years he was a clerk of the privy seal office in London. From around 1424 he lived at the priory of Southwick, Hampshire, and although he was given an annuity by Henry IV, Occleve constantly complains in his poems of his state of poverty. Toward the end of his life he was nearly blind but too proud to wear spectacles. Some of his publications: The Letter of Cupid, 1402 (a translation of Christine de Pisan's L'Épistre au dieu d'amours). The Male Regle, 1406 (a picture of the entertainments afforded to bachelors in the taverns of Westminster, possibly biographical). The Regiment of Princes, 1411 (of 5,488 lines, written for Henry, Prince of Wales). Some of his poems: "A Description of His Ugly Lady," "Balade and Roundel of Master Somer," "Balade to Edward, Duke of York," "Balade to My Maister Carpenter," "De Regimine Principum," "My Compleinte," "The Sleepless Night," "Three Roundels."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). English Poetry: A Poetic Record, from Chaucer to Yeats. David Hopkins, ed. Routledge, 1990. Everyman's Book of English Verse. John Wain, ed. J.M. Dent, 1981. Medieval English Lyrics: A Critical Anthology. R.T. Davies, ed. Northwestern University Press, 1964. My Compleinte and Other Poems of Thomas Hoccleve. Roger Ellis, ed. University of Exeter Press, 2001. Selections from Hoccleve. M.C. Seymour, ed. Clarendon Press 1981. Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (http://library.stanford.edu). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Minor Poems (I.), Asher and Co., 1892. The Oxford Book of Late Medieval Verse and Prose. Douglas Gray, ed. Clarendon Press, 1985. The Regimen of Princes, published for the Early English Text Society by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co., 1897. Works, published for The English Text Society by Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press (1925).