ABSTRACT
Spenser’s introduction to French literature came early, for his headmaster at Merchant Taylors’ School, Richard Mulcaster, had almost certainly read du Bellay, whose Deffence et illustration de la langue françoyse (1549) offered his colleagues in what was to become the Pléiade a program for linguistic innovation and literary improvement (Renwick 1922a, 1922b). While still Mulcaster’s pupil, Spenser was asked to translate some verses for van der Noot’s Theatre (1569), an illustrated indictment of Catholic Rome. Among the poems were eleven sonnets on the collapse of ancient Rome, taken from du Bellay’s Songe (1558).
