Labé, Louise (c.1520-1566), lived in Lyon and published a single volume of poetry there in 1555, containing 24 sonnets, one of which was in Italian, three elegies, a prose ‘Débat de Folie et d'Amour’, and 24 poems by others in her honour. Her lasting reputation depends on the sonnets, often republished and translated. The first two or three poems of the sequence consciously place her in the Petrarchan tradition, employing techniques such as antithesis to convey alternating states of hope and fear, or the frustrations of love which is unreturned or has gone cold, and using hyperbole for intensity of feeling, such as the joyful memory of past love. Labé's structures and conceits are traditional, and she speaks the ordinary language of love, but her own poetic voice comes through distinctly. Her achievement lies in the expression of emotion and desire, creating at least an impression of spontaneity and sincerity. Her writing is usually sensual and pagan (she compares herself to the recently discovered Sappho). Linguistically less inventive than Scève or Ronsard, she also rejects their mythological and imaginative complexity.
The elegies, less distinguished than the sonnets and rather stilted, owe much to Ovid, Tibullus, and Propertius, and they too treat of the absent lover and the ravaging effects of desertion. The ‘Débat’ is a witty dialogue reminiscent of Erasmus, with classical and medieval resonances. The feminist dedicatory epistle to the whole volume, often quoted today, urges women to leave aside their spinning, jewelry, and fine clothes in favour of literature and other cultural pursuits, and so to rival men. As a woman poet she herself successfully challenged prevailing attitudes; yet to talk of her ‘écriture en direct’ as specifically feminine writing is to diminish her intellectual and artistic stature.
[Peter Sharratt]
