Sonnet 23 by Louise Labe

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Sonnet 23 by Louise Labe

• By Ashleigh Pearson
• James Dews V
• Wed. March 14, 2007

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About the Author

• Louise Labé, (c. 1520 or 1522 - 1566), also known
  as La Belle Cordière, was a female French poet of
  the Renaissance, born at Lyon, the daughter of a
  rich ropemaker, Pierre Charly, and his second
  wife, Etiennette Roybet.
• A recent book has argued that she was not an
  actual historical person, but a feminist creation
  of a number of French poets of the Renaissance

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About the Author cont.

• Labe was a colorful and controversial figure
  during her own lifetime. In 1557 a popular song
  on the scandalous behavior of La Cordiere was
  published in Lyon, and 1560 Jean Calvin referred
  to her cross-dressing and called her a plebeia
  meretrix or common whore. Debate on whether or
  not she was or was not a courtesan began in the
  sixteenth century, and has continued up to the
  present day. However, in recent decades, critics
  have focused increasing attention on her literary
  works.
• Her uvres include two prose works a feminist
  preface, urging women to write, that is dedicated
  to a young noblewoman of Lyon, Clemence de
  Bourges and a dramatic allegory in prose
  entitled Debat de Folie et d'Amour, which draws
  on Erasmus' Praise of Folly. Her poetry consists
  of three Elegies in the style of the Heroides of
  Ovid, and twenty-four sonnets that draw on the
  traditions of Neoplatonism and Petrarchism. The
  Debat, the most popular of her works in the
  sixteenth century, inspired one of the fables of
  Jean d la Fontaine and was translated into
  English by Robert Greene in 1608. The sonnets,
  remarkable for their frank eroticism, have been
  her most famous works following the early modern
  period, and were translated into German by Rainer
  Maria Rilke.

Her uvres include two prose works a feminist
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About the Time Period

• The sixteenth century in France was a remarkable
  period of literary creation (the language of this
  period is called Middle French). The use of the
  printing press (aiding the diffusion of works by
  ancient Latin and Greek authors the printing
  press was introduced in 1470 in Paris, and in
  1473 in Lyon), the development of humanism and
  Neo-Platonism, and the discovery (through the
  wars in Italy and through Henri IIs marriage
  with Catherine de Medici) of the cultivated
  refinement of the Italian courts (Baldassare
  Castigliones book The Courtier was also
  particularly important in this respect) would
  profoundly modify the French literary landscape
  and the mental outlook (or mentalité) of the
  period. There is a slow evolution from the rude
  warrior class to a cultivated noble class (giving
  rise to the idea of the honnête homme in the
  seventeenth century). In all genres, there is a
  great interest in love (both physical and
  platonic) and in psychological and moral analysis.

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About the Time Period cont.

• This period saw a proliferation of pamphlets,
  tracts, satires and memoirs the success of
  short-story collections (nouvelles) as well as
  collections of oral tales and anecdotes (propos
  and devis) a public fascination with tragic
  tales from Italy (most notably those of
  Bandello) a considerable increase in the
  translating and publishing of contemporary
  European authors (especially Italians and
  Spaniards) compared to authors from the Middle
  Ages and classical antiquity an important
  increase in the number of religious works sold
  (devotional books would beat out the
  belles-lettres as the most sold genre in France
  at the beginning of the seventeenth century) and
  finally, the publication of important works of
  moral and philosophical reflection.

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About the Sonnet

• The man who is addressed in Sonnet 23 was Labes
  love interest at the time. Before her husbands
  untimely death in 1560, Labe fell in love with
  the poet Olivier de Magny. Magny was the subject
  of many of her poems.
• According to the rules of such love, the male
  was supposed to be extravagant in his praise of
  the womans beauty, comparing her physical
  qualitiest to the wonders of the natural world
  and swearing an eternal love.

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Analytical Breakdown

• We interpreted this Sonnet to mean that it
  doesnt matter how much the person loved you
  while you were together, but when you break up it
  still hurts the same

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SKIT!!!
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Activity