Abstract
One of the most common standards by which the Pléiade poets judged a writer was that of his truth or sincerity. Although none could be more classically traditional or more psychologically obvious, the wide use of this criterion is surprising. For nowhere in the prose treatises of Du Bellay, Peletier, Sébilet, Ronsard, or the others, are mendacity and sincerity in literature discussed independently. It is true that Ronsard comments in brief fashion upon historical truth and verisimilitude in the Abbrégé de l'arl poétique and in the 1587 preface to the Franciade, but, as we shall explain below, it is truth as an ethical concept that is to be our concern here.
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