Parallel Characters: Fradubio and Redcrosse Anonymous College

Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene features an array of characters that appear briefly, usually to influence Redcrosse in a critical moment along his journey. Fradubio is one such character, given sixteen stanzas in a poem of over 600 stanzas. The importance of Fradubio’s character becomes more puzzling considering his stanzas could be removed from Cantos II without discontinuity in the plot line. Why is this talking tree important, both for the literal storyline and the allegorical subplot? Fradubio functions as a parallel character to Redcrosse and contrasts between them pose questions of how grace is loss and obtained. Fradubio’s tale is a succinct preview of the plot come, allowing readers to consider Holiness, Doubt, grace, and other themes before they are fully addressed in later cantos.

Fradubio is easily establish as a parallel character to Redcrosse, through comparison with cantos II and the poem as a whole. In the beginning of his tale, Fradubio is “In prime of youthly yeares, when corage hot/ The fire of love and joy of chevalree” (1.2.35.1-2) similar to the naive Redcrosse, “his hart did earne/ To prove his puissance in battell brave” (1.1.3.6-7). Both men were accompanied by a fair lady: Fraelissa or Una. They...