Laudator Temporis Acti

Joachim du Bellay, The Regrets. A Bilingual Edition. Translated from the French and Latin by David R. Slavitt (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2004), p. x:

That the Pléiade poets are not currently a part of the core curriculum of American colleges and universities should not be surprising. Students of French literature are familiar with them, of course, but this is a dismal time for the study of literature and what Walter Pater said of them—in praise—in The Renaissance suggests the reason for their present neglect: he refers to "the qualities, the value, of the whole Plead [sic, read Pleiad] school of poetry, of the whole phase of taste from which that school derives—a certain silvery grace of fancy, nearly all the pleasure of which is in the surprise at the happy and dexterous way in which a thing slight in itself is handled."

That "silvery grace of fancy" is not much in fashion now among academics. It is "elitist." It assumes a knowledge of and a love for the classics. To put it more clearly and aggressively, these were poets of aristocratic elegance, mannered and civilized, whose playful performances were intended as diversions for themselves and like-minded friends from whom they could expect a level of cultural poise and sophistication that students and some faculty members these days cannot provide.

Much as I agree with these sentiments, anyone seeking a faithful translation of du Bellay's Regrets would do better to consult Richard Helgerson's version (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006). A more accurate title for Slavitt's book would be Poems by David Slavitt, Very Loosely Based on Joachim du Bellay's Les Regrets.