Following Anne Coldiron, Hassan Melehy has reminded us of the importance of Du Bellay’s plan for a defence and illustration of the vernacular for a whole generation of European poets, including Spenser (Coldiron; Melehy 2010, 17–30; Brown). But even he, and Prescott, could only argue for a probable influence of Du Bellay on Shakespeare, which they mainly detect in Shakespeare’s notions about time, and in the immortalizing and embalming function he grants poetry. While this essay cannot produce groundbreaking evidence proving that Shakespeare had definitely read Du Bellay, but it argues for a change of tack. I suggest that instead of looking for sources, we should compare Shakespeare’s free imitation of Petrarchism to Du Bellay’s, for both poets challenge the Petrarchan fashion in a similar, irreverent manner. While Spenser’s mode of imitation keeps close to the original, I argue that Shakespeare and Du Bellay share a form of productive imitation that differs in degree from Spenser’s and moves away from the humanistic conception of imitation.