Ramist Dialectic, Poetic Examples, and the Uses of Pastoral in Abraham Fraunce's The Shepherds' Logic

Abraham Fraunce's The Shepherds' Logic (c. 1585), adapted from Petrus Ramus's Dialecticae libri duo (1556), departs from its model by replacing Ramus's Latin examples with quotations from Spenser's The Shepherds' Calender (1579). Fraunce's use of the Calender foregrounds pastoral poetry as a vehicle for the Ramist conception of logic as an art of imitation, and suggests a logical rationale behind the relations between nature and poetry, truth and fiction, the problem of decorum, and traditional pastoral conventions. Fraunce likewise linked the shepherd and the poet with the Protestant pastor, indicating that the Ramist discursive arts should embrace didactic and doctrinal aims.