The Monk’s Tragical “Seint Edward”

The Monk's Tragical "Seint Edward" Ann W. Astell Purdue University FOR MY PART in this colloquium, I would like to focus on just one of the many unanswered questions concerning The Monk'.r Tale: the mention of the "lyf of Seint Edward."1 Why does the Monk offer first to tell "a tale, or two, or three," then to say "the lyf of Seint Edward," and finally to replace or to preface that legend with the telling of "tragedies" (MkP 1968-71)? This is the only place in Chaucer's works where Ed­ ward is named. The name appears somewhat awkwardly as a rhyme word at the end of a line, and the choice of that saint, rather than any other, is deliberate. The rapidity with which the Monk backs off, an­ nouncing in the next line, "Or ellis, first, tragedies wol I telle" (line 1971), points to a certain rhetorical anxiety about reciting Edward's leg­ end and raises questions about the relationship between Edward's "lyf" and the tragedies of once prosperous people ("popes, emperours, or kynges") who are "yfallen out of heigh degree" (line 1976). The forcible cutting short of the Monk's tale collection, with the consequence that the life of St. Edward is never literally told, makes the mention of it all the more suggestive. Chaucerians have, however, paid little attention to the allusion to St. Edward. His "lyf," after all, is not the tale the Monk tells. Indeed, it is sometimes remarked that the Monk's failure to tell a saint's life-the kind of story that would, after all, be proper to him as a religious­ registers yet another Chaucerian criticism of his worldliness. Andy Kelly insists similarly that the saint's legend is a comedic "upbeat genre" that stands by definition against tragedy, the Monk's genre of choice. Still others (TerryJones among them) are inclined to regard the 1 All quotations from Chaucer's works are from Larry D. Benson, gen. ed., The River­ side Chaucer, 3d ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987). Further citations are made paren­ thetically in the text. 399 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER mention of St. Edward as a passing, incidental, Chaucerian "compli­ ment'' to King Richard II. Susan Cavanaugh notes in The Riverside Chaucer that "Seim Edward" is "probably Edward the Confessor (c. 1004-66), King of England," to whom "Richard II had a special devotion" (p. 929). The note correctly points us in the direction of Richard, whose "special devotion" to the Confessor amounted to a virtual identification with him. As Dillian Gordon observes, the Confessor "died on 5 January, the eve of Richard II's birthday" and Richard consciously endeavored to make his life a con­ tinuation of St. Edward's.2 Chaucerians need to think more seriously about the rhetorical force of an allusion to one of the king's patron saints at the heading of an unfin­ ished tale de casibus virorum illustrium that includes "modern instances" of deposed and murdered rulers. Without wanting to deny in any way that "Seint Edward" refers to Edward the Confessor, I follow Roger Ellis and David Wallace in insisting that "Seim Edward" is also purposely ambiguous, in order to evoke at the same time the memory of Edward II, Richard's deposed and murdered great-grandfather, whose cause for canonization as a martyr Richard ardently supported and whose style of "governance" Richard consciously imitated, with disastrous conse­ quences.3 I would argue that the mention of "Seim Edward," like references to Saint Kenelm and "King Richard" in The Nun's Priest's Tale, serves to key in a sustained, three-part political allegory that begins with Chaucer's Tale ofMelibee and ends with the fable of Chauntecleer.4 The mention of the untold "lyf of Seim Edward" is, in rhetorical terms, an occultatio, as well as apraecisio, that awakens the suspicion of veiled meaning. It helps to gloss the emphatic, ironic reference to the body-"corpus" (MkP 1906), "brawnes" (line 1941), "bones" (line 1941)-and to the Monk's lack of spirit and spirituality ("thou art not lyk a penant or a goost" {line 2 Dillian Gordon, Making and Meaning: The Wilton...