SOURCE: Griffin, Robert. “From Poetic Theory to Practice,” and “Les Antiquitez de Rome.” In Coronation Of The Poet: Joachim Du Bellay's Debt To The Trivium pp. 67-111; 115-137. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969.

In the first essay below, Griffin illustrates Du Bellay's contributions to the structure of French poetry. In the second, he conducts a detailed exploration of Du Bellay's Les Antiquitez De Rome.

From Poetic Theory to Practice

Art and Nature

It has often been observed that the contribution of the Deffence et Illustration can be measured as much by the enthusiastic attitude of its author as by the substance of its poetic doctrine. We have seen that this doctrine can be reduced largely to the main points of classical Latin rhetoric and poetic in both theory and practice. Under the guise of Corybantic madness that supposedly besets the poet and through the impulse...