An Analysis of the Epic Tree Catalogue in Spensor's The Farie Queene and the Illustrative Effects of its Parody in Joyce's Ulysses

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An Analysis of the Epic Tree Catalogue in Spenser’s The Faerie Queene and the Illustrative Effects of its Parody in Joyce’s Ulysses

Edmund Spenser’s epic catalogue of trees in Book 1 of The Faerie Queene (1.1.6-81), an interpolation that shows that Una and Red Cross Knight have, at this early point in the epic, a “narrow preoccupation with the things of this world to the exclusion of broader concerns” (Cheney 4), has precedents in the works of Chaucer and Ovid, as well as in the works of many lesser-known classical authors such as Lucan, Statius, Claudian and Seneca (Wurtsbaugh 56). Thus Spenser, in allowing Una and Red Cross two stanzas to not “see the forest for the trees” (Cheney 7), established himself as among a tradition of epic cataloguers who date back to Homer (Monaghan 5). Within The Faerie Queene, Spenser offers other minor catalogues (including a catalogue of sea monsters in stanzas -4 in canto 1 of Book II) as well as a few major ones, such as the canto-long catalogue of British Kings who “invade the narrative” of Book II (Freeman 64). Some years later, James Joyce, in his amalgamated modern epic / epic parody Ulysses, parodied Spenser’s tree catalogue with his own tree catalogue interpolation (1.166-15) in a chapter full of inflated parodic interpolations meant to place its mock-hero Leopold Bloom in “lonely isolation within a world given over to vast excesses” (Blamires 118). Spenser and Joyce’s epic tree catalogue interpolations both give their heroes / protagonists “‘invisible boundaries’” (Levine 6) that, once broken, place them both deeper into their perilous circumstances (Red Cross Knight and Una with Error in the Wood of Error; Bloom with the politically zealous anti-Semitic “citizen” in Barney Kiernan’s pub). This broad similarity, as well as other minor similarities present between Spenser and Joyce’s interpolations, shows how effectively a parody can illuminate its source material. A close analysis of Joyce’s parody of Spenser allows the reader of both to approach either with a “decoder ring” of sorts that opens up these particular passages of The Faerie Queene and Ulysses for a more complete understanding.

Una and Red Cross Knight, on the outset of their journey in The Faerie Queene, seeking shelter from a storm, “A shadie grove not far away they spide, / That promist ayde the tempest to withstand / Whose loftie trees yclad with sommers pride” (1.1.56-58). Once inside the “shadie grove,” Una and Red Cross, “with pleasure forward led” (1.1.64) “[did] prayse the trees, so straight and hy” (1.1.68). Spenser’s epic catalogue of twenty trees follows, arranged by height (Monaghan 5), and each praised not for their aesthetic qualities, but for their practicality (Freeman 65)

1. “The sayling Pine” [for shipbuilding (Gifford 5)]




. “the Cedar proud and tall” [Recalls Isaiah 1, “And upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up” (Maclean 8).]

. “The vine-prop Elme” [“the elm supporting the vine” (Rabbeth )]

4. “the Poplar never dry”

5. “The builder Oake, sole king of forrests all”

6. “The Aspine good for staves [staffs]” [The aspen stands for lamentation (Gifford 5).]

7. “the Cypresse funerall” [Ovid’s tree catalogue in Metamorphoses directly precedes the story of Cyparissus, who was turned into a Cypress tree by Apollo after becoming inconsolable after killing a deer (Maclean 8).]

8. “The Laurell, meed [reward] of mightie Conquerours / And Poets sage” [with it they are crowned (Rabbeth )]

. “the Firre that weepeth still”

10. “The Willow worne of forlorne Paramours” [“worn by desolate, forlorn lovers” (Rabbeth )]

11. “The Eugh obedient to the benders will” [“the yew, of which bows are made” (Rabbeth )]

1. “The Birch for shaftes” [Arrows; the birch stands for meekness (Gifford 5).]

1. “the Sallow for the mill”

14. “The Mirrhe sweete bleeding in the bitter wound” [Myrrh is associated with Christ’s birth and thus (here) the wounds of his crucifixion (Maclean 8).]

15. “The warlike Beech” [Beech symbolizes prosperity (Gifford 5).]

16. “the Ash for nothing ill”

17. “The fruitfull Olive”

18. “and the Platane round”

1. “The carver Holme” [“Holly or holm-oak, both suitable for carving” (Logan et al. 61).]

0. “the Maple seeldom inward sound” (1.1.6-81)

Why did Spenser include such an interpolation? The simplest answer is that he is allowing Una and Red Cross some textual wandering time (one and a half stanzas) in which to get thoroughly lost in the Wood of Error (Freeman 64). It is, most certainly, considering the later discovery of the hideous Error, a “prelude to crisis” (Cheney 7) that can be considered, in its wordy tangle of virtues, a way for Spenser to portray that “the image of the wood is governed by the idea of mental confusion” (Freeman 64).

That Spenser’s tree catalogue is ripe for parody, despite its use as a portrayal of “mental confusion,” is only contextually evident. Joyce places his Spenserian parody in a context that makes his Red Cross and Una counterparts essentially the trees themselves, lavishly wed as a means to re-forest Ireland. This is accomplished as one of parodic interpolations / asides in the so-called “Cyclops” chapter of Ulysses (Chapter 1, so named because of its Homeric parallels) (Gifford 14). The Spenserian parody is cued, in the main narrative of “Cyclops,” by a discussion of the deforestation of Ireland at Barney Kiernan’s pub in Dublin. The mock-hero of Ulysses, Leopold Bloom, only “stick[s] in an odd word” (1.16) in the conversation, which is dominated by barflies John Wyse Nolan, Lenehan, and “The Citizen,” a nameless, anti-Semitic political zealot who can be seen as the “Error” counterpart in Joyce’s parody, later threatening Bloom with crucifixion. Joyce’s Spenserian parody is built on four key phrases in the dialogue, which I have noted in italics

�As treeless as Portugal we’ll be soon, says John Wyse, or Heligoland with its one tree if something is not done to reafforest the land. Larches, firs, all the trees of the conifer family are going fast. I was reading a report of lord Castletown’s …

�Save them, says the citizen, the giant ash of Galway and the chieftain elm of Kildare with a fortyfoot bole and an acre of foliage. Save the trees of Ireland for the future men of Ireland on the fair hills of Eire, O.

�Europe has its eyes on you, says Lenehan. (1.158-165)

These four phrases serve as building blocks on which Joyce generates his parody. His parodic interpolation is in the style of both an epic and a journalistic international “society page” (hence “reading a report” and “Europe has its eyes on you”) reporting what Joyce himself called the “Forester’s Wedding” (-----). The intent of the “Forester’s Wedding” is, indeed, to “Save the trees of Ireland” by the tree “procreation” that will come from the marriage. The Una counterpart in Joyce’s parody is literally a member of the “conifer family”�“Miss Fir Conifer of Pine Valley” (1.168-6). Red Cross becomes John Wyse Nolan, or rather “Jean Wyse de Neaulan, grand high chief ranger of the Irish National Foresters” (1.167).







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