This article argues that French poet Joachim Du Bellay’s interest in the Dido figure and his unusual ventriloquizing of female characters are connected to his practice of cultivating female patrons. Du Bellay’s occasional poems, long ignored by scholars, suggest the impact that these patrons had on Du Bellay’s career. Although his writing for women is inconsistent with recommendations made in the Deffence et illustration de la langue francoyse, Du Bellay’s work for female patrons nonetheless allowed him to fulfill many of his early poetic ambitions. Cet article avance que l’intérêt du poète français Joachim Du Bellay pour le personage de Didon ainsi que l’inhabituelle ventriloquie de ses personnages féminins sont liés à sa recherche de mécènes féminins. Les poèmes de circonstance de Du Bellay, longtemps ignorés par la recherche, suggèrent que ses mécènes ont eu un impact sur sa carrière. Bien que son écriture pour des femmes soit en contradiction avec les recommandations contenues dans sa Deffence et illustration de la langue francoyse, ce travail pour des clientes féminines lui a permis de concrétiser plusieurs de ses premières ambitions poétiques.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Landers, B., (2025), "Dido’s Defense: Joachim Du Bellay’s Bid for Female Patronage", HSSCommons: (DOI: )

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1. Renaissance and Reformation

Original publication: Landers, Beth. "Dido’s Defense: Joachim Du Bellay’s Bid for Female Patronage." Renaissance and Reformation 41 (1): 2018. 31-54. DOI: 10.33137/rr.v41i1.29520. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Iter Canada / Renaissance and Reformation. Copyright © the author(s). Their work is distributed by Renaissance and Reformation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For details, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.