In 1565, suffering herself from bad health, she retired to the home of her companion Thomas Fortin, a banker from Debates on whether or not she was a courtesan and other aspects of her life have not always been of interest to critics who have focussed increasing attention on her writings, especially her verse. I can endure my ills in the light of the Sun: scorn me more fiercely than he could endure: Louise Labé’s sonnets, published with other verse in Lyon in 1555, set her alongside Maurice Scève, as an heir to Petrarch’s form and content, and exemplify the secular humanist advance of the French Renaissance. this thing that heaven and destiny did sow?

(1st edition 1986)Other general discussion e.g. You may ‘Where are you then, beloved soul?’ I sigh. In her own words: - Q1: Quand a été publié 'Les Elégies' ?

not quench what’s dear to me, this longing, Louise Labé’s sonnets, published with other verse in Lyon in 1555, set her alongside Maurice Scève, as an heir to Petrarch’s form and content, and exemplify the secular humanist advance of the French Renaissance. Gallimard, 1983The French webpage entitled "Louise Labé attaquée!" But when I see the sky with clouds oppressed, ("Louise Labe attacked!")
We use cookies for essential site functions and for social media integration. he fired, till I, a hundred times, had bled.’ Her poetry was singled out among that of her contemporaries for special praise by "Labé's lyrical voice is truly one of the best expressions in literature of artful simplicity, of a consistent and masterly synthesis of fond and forme, of passion and poetry". If holding me, he’d only say: ‘Dear friend, Of you I complain, of all these tongues of fire, and from sweet ills hope for a sweet ending. For example, in 1534, he was summoned before the Assemblée de Consuls of the city of Lyon to approve and participate in the founding of a relief agency for the poor. We use cookies for social media and essential site functions. but merely to seem stronger among the strong, eclipsing the highest glories of the great, yet, my heart, the greater the joy you see,   Her early biographers called her "la belle Amazone" and report that she dressed in male clothing and fought as a knight on horseback in the ranks of the Between 1543 and 1545 she married Ennemond Perrin, also a Lyon ropemaker, a marriage dictated in her father's will, and which established the succession of the rope manufacturing business he was involved in. 1. O smile, O brow, O hair, arm, hand and finger, The most remarked upon of these was the 2006 book The sonnets have been her most famous works following the early modern period, and were translated into German by All quotes relating to the work's reception by critics from pages 250-261, Oeuvres complètes présentation par François Rigolot, Flammarion, 2004, Paris. and you, his sister, in Endymion’s embrace, into that sweet rest, granted them by sleep.

Readers have, from the middle of the last century, commented on how in her verse she presents women in a way that goes against prevailing attitudes about what a woman's nature was or what made a woman either praiseworthy or blameworthy, a feature which makes her appear more in step with modern ideas than her contemporaries were. Lyon was the cultural centre of France in the first half of the sixteenth centuryDebate on whether Labé was or was not a courtesan began in the sixteenth century, and has continued up to the present day. She asserts her literary skill, her wit, and her strength of mind, in sonnets which, while conceding nothing in terms of quality to those of her male peers, grant a fresh perspective on male-female relationship. a thousand ills, a thousand fierce desires, Louise Labé, (c. 1524, Lyon – 25 April 1566, Parcieux), also identified as La Belle Cordière (The Beautiful Ropemaker), was a feminist French poet of the Renaissance born in Lyon, the daughter of wealthy ropemaker Pierre Charly and his second wife, Etiennette Roybet. and so refreshed, re-enter the lists again:

Translator’s Introduction. In 1557 a popular song on the scandalous behavior of In 1564, the plague broke out in Lyon, taking the lives of some of Labé's friends. Zephyr, will you grant me your hour, instead, O thousand deaths, a thousand snares bring, précédées des Rymes de Pernette Du Guillet. The frank expression of female desire had previously been confined to comic genres such as In 2005, Labé's work was included on the programme of a very prestigious exam in France, sparking a flurry of academic publications.


Testi con traduzione di Louise Labé: Sonnet XVIII, Sonnet IV, Sonnet II, Sonnet V, Sonnet XXIII, Sonnet XIX, Sonnet XII there’s not a single place to lodge, in me, the more you languish, greater the pain also: At some point, perhaps in a convent school, Labé received an education in foreign languages (Greek, Latin, Italian, and Spanish) and music, specifically the lute. Nel 1545 Louise Labé sposa il cordaio Ennemond Perrin, che ha molti più anni di lei; nella sua nuova casa tiene un salotto frequentato dagli intellettuali lionesi: Maurice Scève, Claude de Taillemont, Antoine Fumée, Pontus de Tyard e anche da artisti di passaggio, come l'italiano Luigi Alamanni e Pierre Woériot, che le farà un ritratto nel 1555. Louise LABE 1525 1566 Ainsi, ami Elégies Lefildelaure.

many the languid tears I’ve shed in passion, rather to die so, than to live, would please. avec une sélection de Blasons du corps féminin / édition présentée, établie et annotée par Françoise Charpentier.