William Webbe's A Discourse of English Poetry: Vindicating Spenser as an Act of Self-Fashioning

William Webbe addresses the preface of A Discourse of English Poetry to the 'Noble Poets of England' to urge them to work on strengthening national verse through the renewal of English metres. Declining any pretensions of indoctrination, Webbe founds his poetica on the recognition of the potential of English poetry through poetic exempla and commendations of authors, which seem to encompass his own aspirations to impress Cambridge intellectuals. The pervasive use of textual material from Spenser's The Shepherds' Calendar is a rhetorical device used by Webbe to portray his commitment to humanist premises, and to establish his place in the literary milieu.