Customer Reviews

Complete Poetry and Prose: A Bilingual Edition (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe)

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My mentor Lee Slonimsky (of Pythagoras In Love) highly recommended this
author because of the similarity in the tone of our "walking poems".
The prose and poetry by Louise Labe, with excellent translation by Annie Finch, depicts a poignant tale of love and passion that transcends death.
The markings in her tombstone brought me tears, while her sizzling passionate poem (of kisses) mirrors my own romantic expressions in poetry.
Simply loved it! Kudos to Annie Finch for capturing such fine moments of a French lover, in English.

This is an excellent edition of the complete works of Louise Labe, who is one of the most important women writers of the French Renaissance and whose poetry is especially wonderful, providing a much-needed female perspective on the love lyric. One mustn't ignore Labe's prose however, for her "Debate of Folly and Love" is an excellent addition to the literary tradition of the debate and showcases Labe's proto-feminism.


Deborah Lesko Baker provides excellent introductions to Labe's poetry and prose, describing her life and times and her relation to other Renaissance writers (esp. Christine de Pisan). Baker illuminates Labe's role as a distinctively female writer and how her sonnets respond to those of Petrarch. Essentially, then, Baker provides all the background necessary for a full understanding of Labe, and she also supplies copious and helpful footnotes to Labe's works.

In addition, Annie Finch's translations of Labe's poetry are superb, capturing the spirit of the originals (of course, the french is on the facing page). All in all, this is an essential purchase for anyone interested in Labe or French Renaissance literature, being the only complete bilingual edition of Labe's works available and a model for all scholarly editions of its kind.