Du Bellay, Joachim

Related Category: French Literature: Biographies

(zhōäshăN´ bĕlā´), 1522?–1560, French poet of the Pléiade (see under Pleiad). He wrote their manifesto, La Deffence et illustration de la langue francoyse (1549), which urges the study and emulation of the classics and the use of French as the literary language. His poetic works, broadly imitative of Latin and Italian works, include a collection of sonnets, L'Olive (1549); and Divers jeux rustiques (1558). He served (1553–57) in Rome as secretary to his cousin, Cardinal Du Bellay; Les Regrets (1558) and Les Antiquités de Rome (1558) contain some of his finest poems, conveying his impressions of Rome and his nostalgia for his native land. The Antiquités were translated by Edmund Spenser.