{"id":11778,"date":"2014-04-10T16:02:41","date_gmt":"2014-04-10T20:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=11778"},"modified":"2014-04-21T11:55:14","modified_gmt":"2014-04-21T15:55:14","slug":"louise-labe-love-sonnets-elegies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2014\/04\/10\/louise-labe-love-sonnets-elegies\/","title":{"rendered":"Louise Lab\u00e9: Love Sonnets & Elegies<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before I got this book, I had never heard of Louise Lab\u00e9, a female French poet whose works of poetry are complete with twenty-four sonnets and three elegies, published in 1555. They come to us now in\u00a0a lovely bilingual edition from the\u00a0NYRB\/Poets series, finally translated into English by Richard Siebuth.<\/p>\n

\"Review
Review copy courtesy of NYRB\/Poets.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This edition comes loaded with helpful material, including\u00a0a preface by Karin Lessing, a chronology of\u00a0Lab\u00e9’s life and of these pieces of poetry (including a brief account of the latest bit from 2006 when Mireille Huchon claimed these were not really by Louise Lab\u00e9, but rather are a hoax by Maurice Sc\u00e8ve . . . and two dozen of his friends . . . oh, and the publisher\u00a0— sigh), ten pages of helpful notes, and a twenty-five-page afterword by the translator (where we also learn that, hey, Sc\u00e8ve was a bit of a trickster, once claiming to have found the grave of Petrarch’s muse, Laura, complete with another of Petrarch’s poem — and she was the French Laure de Noves, ancestor of the Marquis de Sade; Sieburth has also translated Sc\u00e8ve’s D\u00e9lie<\/em>, published in 2003).<\/p>\n

But I saved all of that\u00a0(and it’s fascinating — and fun)\u00a0until the end, figuring I’d just dive in and get to know Lab\u00e9 through her own words first.<\/p>\n

The first thing we see here\u00a0is\u00a0a dedicatory epistle to\u00a0a young Lyonnaise\u00a0noblewoman named Clemence de Bourges, which shocked and simultaneously invigorated me:<\/p>\n

The time having come, Mademoiselle, when the stern laws of men no longer bar women from devoting themselves to the sciences & other branches of learning: it seems to me that those who have the opportunity to do so ought to take advantage of that honorable liberty which persons of our sex formerly so desired, in order to study such matters: & to show men the harm they have done us by depriving us of the benefit & the honor which should have been our due.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is obvious from the adamantly feminist dedicatory epistle that Lab\u00e9 has a great deal to say to us today. Indeed, Sieburth tells us in his afterword,\u00a0in 2005 her works were made required reading for the\u00a0French national agr\u00e9gation<\/em> exam in literature. She wasn’t prolific, but\u00a0what we have is wonderful,\u00a0and it feels like a gift finally getting these in English, even if I never knew they existed.<\/p>\n

Though the elegies are at the back of this edition (according to Sieburth, most scholars agree they were written after the sonnets), they were at the front of the original 1555 edition, serving, in a way, as an introduction to Lab\u00e9, her love, and her sonnets. I believe it is here that we get a lot of what we think we may\u00a0know of her private life. We know that she married a ropemaker who was two decades older than her,\u00a0yet this passage from Elegy 3<\/em> seems to suggest she loved, but could not love, someone else:<\/p>\n

I hadn’t seen sixteen Winters pass<\/span>
\nWhen I found myself in this awful plight:<\/span>
\nAnd here it is, the thirteenth Summer<\/span>
\nSince Love stunned me to the core.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Love is, as we might expect from Petrarchan sonnets from the Renaissance, the central theme. But for me it’s the sly way she goes about it, the mysteries\u00a0inherent in the playful text, filled with Eros, that make these unique and, I’m assuming since I’ve already reread them five times, perpetually rereadable.<\/p>\n

Just look at how much is hidden and slightly revealed in the highly\u00a0sexual Sonnet VIII<\/em>:<\/p>\n

I live, I die: I flare up & I drown.<\/span>
\nThe colder I feel the hotter I burn:<\/span>
\nLife is too hard & too soft in turn.<\/span>
\nTo every joy sorrow circles round.<\/span><\/p>\n

All of a sudden I laugh & I weep,<\/span>
\nTaking pleasure in each twinge of pain:<\/span>
\nThe moment I flower, I fade away:<\/span>
\nThe treasure I lose, a treasure I keep.<\/span><\/p>\n

Inconstant Love is my most constant guide:<\/span>
\nWhenever the pain grows beyond belief,<\/span>
\nTo my surprise, I feel nothing inside.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, convinced my bliss cannot be denied<\/span>
\nAnd I’m about to climb joy’s highest peak,<\/span>
\nHe reminds me of all my former grief.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I loved this book, which, as I mentioned above, not only introduces English readers to the works of Louise Lab\u00e9 but also fills its pages with fascinating details of her life and of the attempts to strip her of her work. I’d love to keep quoting here, but best if you just go find a copy yourself and dig in.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trevor reviews the new English translation of Louise Lab\u00e9’s Love Sonnets & Elegies<\/em>. He’d never heard of Lab\u00e9 before, and now he can’t get enough of her work (or her fascinating story). Read the full post<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"libsyn-item-id":0,"libsyn-show-id":0,"libsyn-post-error":"","libsyn-post-error_post-type":"","libsyn-post-error_post-permissions":"","libsyn-post-error_api":"","playlist-podcast-url":"","libsyn-episode-thumbnail":"","libsyn-episode-widescreen_image":"","libsyn-episode-blog_image":"","libsyn-episode-background_image":"","libsyn-post-episode-category-selection":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_thumbnail":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_theme":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_height":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_width":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_placement":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link_text":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_custom_color":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-explicit":"","libsyn-post-episode":"","libsyn-post-episode-update-id3":"","libsyn-post-episode-release-date":"","libsyn-post-episode-simple-download":"","libsyn-release-date":"","libsyn-post-update-release-date":"","libsyn-is_draft":"","libsyn-new-media-media":"","libsyn-post-episode-subtitle":"","libsyn-new-media-image":"","libsyn-post-episode-keywords":"","libsyn-post-itunes":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-season-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-type":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-title":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-author":"","libsyn-destination-releases":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-enabled":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-input-enabled":false,"libsyn-post-episode-premium_state":"","libsyn-episode-shortcode":"","libsyn-episode-embedurl":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[506],"tags":[],"coauthors":[505],"class_list":["post-11778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-louise-labe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Louise-Labe.jpg?fit=240%2C275&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-33Y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11778"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12208,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11778\/revisions\/12208"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11778"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=11778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}