Thanks to her acclaimed volume of poetry and prose published in France
in 1555, Louise Labé (1522-66) remains one of the most important and
influential women writers of the Continental Renaissance. Best known for
her exquisite collection of love sonnets, Labé played off the Petrarchan
male tradition with wit and irony, and her elegies respond with lyric
skill to predecessors such as Sappho and Ovid. The first complete
bilingual edition of this singular and broad-ranging female author,
Complete Poetry and Prose also features the only translations of
Labé's sonnets to follow the exacting rhyme patterns of the originals
and the first rhymed translation of Labé's elegies in their entirety.