Ben Jonson’s play Poetaster, or, The Arraignment and Edmund Spenser’s set of pastoral poems The Shepheardes Calender are two English Renaissance texts acutely aware of and concerned with their place in the literary canon vis-à-vis those who have come before. Each work attempts to establish the relationship of the English language to the Latin language and to create an authoritative English lexicon different than but related to Latin. My project compares the ways these two writers conceive of the classical tradition and use it as a counterpoint to their own understanding of the burgeoning English literary canon.