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The Hoccleve Holographs and Hoccleve's Metrical Practice: More Than Counting Syllables? Judith A. Jefferson Taking Hoccleve's strict adherence to the ten- or eleven-syllable line as a given, this essay will concentrate on the relationship of his metre to iambic pentameter. Hoccleve's perceived failure to write a satisfactory iambic pentameter line has brought him a great deal of criticism and, as a result, the strictness of his syllable count, though often observed, has not always w o n him m u c h praise. Thus Saintsbury, while noting Hoccleve's determination to get ten syllables into each line, comments that 'to any poetical, or even decently rhythmical, effect, his verse is almost wholly a stranger'. Furnivall observes that 'Hoccleve's metre is poor. So long as he can count ten syllables by his fingers, he is content [...] H e constantly thwarts the natural run of his line by putting stress on a word that shouldn't bear it, or using a strong syllable as a weak one'; while H a m m o n d 1 Ten syllables or eleven with feminine rhyme. For discussion of Hoccleve's syllab count see Judith A. Jefferson, 'The Hoccleve Holographs and Hoccleve's Metrical Practice', in Manuscripts and Texts: Editorial Problems in Later Middle English Literature, ed. by Derek Pearsall (Woodbridge and Wolfeboro: Brewer, 1987), pp. 95109 (and for the treatment of the various flourishes on final letters and the syllable count of particular words see especially pp. 96-7, notes 8 and 9). 204 Judith A. Jefferson states that 'Hoccleve manages pentameter badly, and is insensitive to the weave of stressed and unstressed syllables, so long as their number is constant at ten'. O n the other hand, the comments of some more recent scholars appear to suggest that the syllable count may not have been Hoccleve's only achievement. E. G. Stanley, for instance, observing the number of regular iambic pentameter lines in Ad Patrem, concludes that Hoccleve's verse is 'basically regular', while Norman Davis considers that thefive-stresspattern with alternating stresses is frequent enough 'to justify the belief that Hoccleve in general intended his verses 3 to be read asfive-stresslines'. Material for this discussion will be drawn from the Hoccleve holographs found in Durham University Library M S Cosin V.iii.9 and the Huntington Library M S S H M 111 and H M 744. Where this will be helpful, examples will be taken from the concordance of the whole of this material, but, in general, discussion will centre on The Letter of Cupid and on the holograph section of The Series, i.e. from line 253 of The Dialogue onwards. Comparison with scribal readings in the non- holograph witnesses of these works will sometimes be used to clarify 4 Hoccleve's intentions. The incomplete holograph version of Learn to Die found in H M 744 will be used only for the purpose of comparison with the Durham 2 See George Saintsbury, A History ofEnglish Prosodyfrom the Twelfth Century to Present Day, i : From the Origins to Spenser (London and New York: Macmillan, 1906), p. 232; Hoccleve's Works: The Minor Poems I, ed. by F. J. Furnivall, EETS 61 (1892), reissued with The Minor Poems II, ed. by I. Gollancz, EETS ES 73 (1897), in one volume, revised by Jerome Mitchell and A. I. Doyle (1970), p. xii; and also Eleanor Prescott Hammond, English Verse between Chaucer and Surrey (New York: Octagon, rpr. 1965), p. 55. 3 E. G. Stanley, 'Chaucer's Metre after Chaucer, I: Chaucer to Hoccleve', Notes and Queries, 234 (1989), 11-23 (p. 17b); Norman Davis, 'Notes on Grammar and Spelling in the Fifteenth Century', in The Oxford Book ofLate Medieval Verse and Prose, ed. by Douglas Gray (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), pp. 493-508 (p. 494). 4 The manuscripts containing scribal copies which are cited in the course of this essay are as follows: The Series: Co: Coventry, City Record Office M S Accession 325/1 (c.l450); Bol: Oxford, Bodleian Library M S Bodley 221 (c. 1450); La: Oxford, Bodleian Library M S Laud misc. 735 (1450-75); Se: Oxford, Bodleian Library M S Arch. Selden supra...
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