Note 169 — Chapter IV · THE CRITICISM OF THE PLÉIADE.

The small space given to the Défense here may seem inconsistent with the importance assigned to it. The fact is, however,—and this fact no doubt explains to some extent, if it does not excuse, the views of those who do not think it very important,—that its details require little notice. Its claim lies in its eager eloquence, in the new position sketched above, and (negatively) in its onslaught on the forms of French poetry for two hundred years past. Du Bellay’s critical views reappear in the “Epistle to the Reader” in his Olive (ed. Becq de Fouquières, pp. 67-76), in that prefixed to his Vers Traduits (ibid., pp. 151-157), in the vigorous defence of vernacular verse addressed to the second of the three Valois Marguerites (ibid., pp. 127-129), and elsewhere.