BARTAS, GUILLAUME DE SALLUSTE, SEIGNEUR DU

(lord of) born 1544, Montfort, near Auch, Fr. died July 1590, Coudons author of La Semaine (1578), an influential poem about the creation of the world. Though he tried to avoid participating in the Wars of Religion, du Bartas was an ardent Huguenot and a trusted counsellor of Henry of Navarre. His aim was to use the new poetic techniques introduced into France by the literary group known as La Pliade for the presentation of distinctively Protestant views. He was himself dissatisfied with his first biblical epic, Judith (1574). On the publication of La Semaine, however, du Bartas was hailed as a major poet. His prestige was all the greater because Pierre de Ronsard, his contemporary, had failed in his ambition to compose a first-class epic in French. La Semaine did not remain popular in France for long; its style is marred by numerous neologisms and ungainly compound adjectives, and the didactic intent is too obvious. In fact, the poem made a more lasting impression in England, where its Protestant teaching was more generally acceptable. Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, and John Milton were among the English poets influenced by du Bartas.