Poetric practices of regret: Wallace Stevens, reader and translator of Du Bellay

Wallace Stevens' long-lasting interest in the sixteenth-century French poet Joachim du Bellay - the author of Les Regrets and Defense et Illustration de la langue francaise seems to stem from their common practice of poetry as regret. By repeatedly invoking the figure of a young poet exiled in Rome, Stevens created an imaginary portrait of himself also in exile, an exile not so much literal as symbolic. Reading and translating Du Bellay helped Stevens shape his own poetic language.