Thomas Hoccleve, "La Male Regle de T. Hoccleue" and "My Compleinte"

Hoccleve, Thomas. ‘My Compleinte’ and Other Poems. Ed. Roger Ellis. Reprint. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2008.

• "La Male Regle de T. Hoccleue"
• "My Compleinte"

I've read these poems very briefly in the past, and I still find them rather interesting. I'll post my thoughts on each below, but I am rather curious to see what I think of them, and the Regiment of Princes, after reading Knapp's book tomorrow. I think I may have gotten a brief glimpse into some aspect of Knapp's reading from the undergraduate Middle English class I shadowed him in, but it will be interesting to see how his reading expands what I've read today. 

"La Male Regle de T. Hoccleue":

In many ways, both this poem and "My Compleinte" seem to present portions of ideas that Hoccleve integrates later into the Regiment of Princes. For "La Male Regle," Hoccleve describes at length the poor behavior that comprised his youth, which very much follows the description the old man provides Hoccleve as exemplum in the Regiment. Here, Hoccleve seems to be guilty of a wide range of sins and sinful behavior which are personified into allegorical figures. In this, I cannot (as is often the case) help but think to The Vision of Piers the Plowman, but the figures presented in Hoccleve's text are nowhere near as well defined. Nonethelss, Fauel is depicted as woman that presents young Hoccleve with great temptation, able to "peynte hir tale in prose or ryme" (247). Interspersed with the lamentation of youth's mistakes, Hoccleve often complains about his previous and current economic state, pointing to his poverty as another source of woe. I should note that each of Hoccleve's texts I've read, while not comprising his ouvre, all deal with his economic conditions to one extent or another. Beyond his worldly wealth, Hoccleve closes with the hope that God's grace will exceed his spiritual debts, of which he is heavily in the red. 

"My Compleinte":

The above video may not, from a lyrical perspective, entirely line up with Hoccleve's poem, but the title certainly evokes one of the scenes that Hoccleve is best known for among modern students of Middle English literature. Having been distraught from a malady that would, at times, render him savage in the past, Hoccleve has been socially shunned from others either fearing the return of said malady or at least the scandal his company would bring. Hoccleve, feeling that he is cured and wondering if there is something in his visage that causes people to look the other way when he nears them, attempts to see how he looks in the mirror. Rather than simply standing it in front of it, however, Hoccleve acknowledges that, knowing that he is judging his own appearance, he may alter his facial expressions unconsciously. Thus, in an attempt to determine how a subconscious (so to speak) malady may be affecting his visage, Hoccleve attempts to leap suddenly in front of the mirror to surprise himself and thus see the true face that he presents to others. Hoccleve's acknowledgment of and attempts to discover the inner workings of his psychological state provides great fruit for psychoanalytical theorists, and is certainly one of the most intriguing pyschological depictions of a character I've seen in Middle English literature. Hoccleve goes on to begrudge his state, wondering if perhaps the malady is still around and does not, as with too much drink, dissipate with time, but eventually the narrator comes to terms with his state and chalks it up to the form of suffering that tests and ultimately aids his spiritual well-being. 

In the end, Hoccleve's unstable psychological state calls back to the opening of the poem. The first stanza reads like the opening of The Canterbury Tales, but unlike May, which makes people desire to go on pilgrimages, the season of fall "freisshly brou[gh]te it to my remembraunce / That stablenesse in this worlde is there noon" (8-9, brackets inserted rather than fiddling with yoghs in a rich text editor). If Hoccleve the narrator's very psychological state cannot remain stable, nothing it discern or perceives can either, leading to a similar concern of stability that is expressed in the Regiment. Thus, the malady plaguing this narrator may be a test that could enable his spiritual well-being, but it has done little to aid in Hoccleve's stability in this world.