Louise Labe & Petrarch

Brief commentary on Louise Labe and Petrarch's poetry that I did for class, uploaded for Sasha's perusal :)

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Louise Labé’s work is remarkable in many aspects: her unabashed eroticism, her proto-feminist leanings, its powerful themes of love; but above all else for its remarkable mimicry of the Petrarchan style so in vogue in her time. However, even a thorough reading of Labé’s work is insufficient to determine her motivations. Is her replicatory inversion of the Petrarchan style a mocking parody, or, rather, is it a loving homage? In my opinion, neither: Labé’s style is at once a ringing endorsement of the Petrarchan convention, all while the woman’s voice she bears fundamentally undermines it; or ‘explosive assimilation’ as Jones calls it on page 152 of her work. It is this explosive assimilation that I find the most fascinating aspect of Labé’s work, and it is that which I would like to analyze further. To analyze the exact nature of this term - of course - requires us to first understand what is being assimilated explosively. What are these Petrarchan norms that Labé is seeking to interrogate? To begin with, Petrarchan poetry is a specific genre of love poetry - love poetry we might more aptly call longing poetry. The Peterarchan convention does not normally include themes of joyous reunion, erotic experience, or mutual comfort; instead it generally consists, quite simply, of a male ‘protagonist’ observer engaged in rhapsodic admiration of a female figure - the ‘observed’ - who does not act, much less speak. It is important to note the fundamentally gendered division of this convention - the writer is male, the beloved object of admiration female. The suffering poet is consumed by unrequited love, but it is the lack of fulfilment that ultimately feeds his desire for creativity and poetry in the first place. In the contrary position, his lady-love is beautiful, admirable, and distant - so distant she is closer in many ways to a deity (to which she is sometimes compared) than to a mere mortal like the author. The Poet, consumed by his lovesickness, often engages in a blason - a systematic listing of his infatuation's physical features, often incorporating extensive use of simile and metaphor. The core thematic element is of the fundamental distance between the author and his beloved; and the font of suffering which acts as both a deep cut to the poet's troubled heart but also a flowing source of poetic inspiration. Thus, we can firmly categorize Petrarchan convention as poetry of longing. Having laid out clearly a Petrarchan poem's primary characteristics, we can immediately observe the fundamental problem at the core of Labé’s poetry when contrasted with a Petrarchan framework: the inversion of gender roles! Labé uses an unabashedly feminine voice - which presents a challenge to the very core of the Petrarchan convention. As Jones says on page 136, “To speak as a woman in either of these discourses, in fact, is to contradict the role they assign to women: the opaque target of the male gaze, of male desire, of male praise and persuasion.” This is the explosive part of Labé’s work; if the ‘silent beloved’ were to speak in one of Petrarch’s works, the entire system would collapse. For the ‘divine’ figure in the garden over the wall to turn and say “I am here, I am real too, I desire you too” shatters the flagellant ideal - the suffering poet whose love will never be fulfilled. If love is reciprocated, a Petrarchan poem goes from being a poem of longing to a poem of real, true love. From this explosion of Petrarchan norms, thus emerges the seeds for a rebirth via assimilation - and this is exactly what Labé’s work leads to. In the first lines of a Labé poem, an experienced reader of Petrarch would encounter a violent antithesis of his style, but upon finishing it they would find themselves holding more of a synthesis, a reimagining of his style in Labé’s own voice. The tools used to produce this are manifold, but there are a few key elements that deserve mention. First of all, Labé’s reversal of the blason paints a very particular picture - simultaneously parodic but with a sole of genuine appreciation for the Petrarchan spirit. “Ah laugh, ah forehead, hair, arm, hand, and finger; ah plaintive lute, viola, bow, and singer” (Labé, Sonnet 2). This is an ironic reversal of Petrarchan concept - but it is also an expression of genuine and beautiful desire that pays homage at the same time! Alongside this, Labé’s deployment of feminine anger in Sonnet 23 showcases another vivid rejection of Petrarchan cliche with the same end result - the production of an even more passionate love poem. “Was the aim of your deceitful malice to enslave me, while seeming to be in my service?” A bold repudiation of the Petrarchan ‘suffering lover’ style, but what follows immediately thereafter? “Since I know for sure, wherever you may be, you endure your martyrdom [separation from Labé or the character she adopts as the author of the poem], as I do mine.” This show of fiery emotion serves to enhance, not diminish, the underlying Petrarchan message, while seemingly contradicting the style on the surface. Lastly, Labé’s eroticism, although at first a contradiction of the Petrarchan establishment, once again pays homage to its deeper themes and inspirations! Sonnet 18 (Kiss me again) - as discussed during our post-presentation chat - is a homage to Catullus’s fifth poem; and Catullus was a key influence on Petrarch and his style! Putting all the pieces together; it’s obvious to me that Labé’s style is not exemplified as either parody or homage - but instead as an almost strategic reformatting of the Petrarchan themes it plays upon. Labé, in a certain sense, becomes more Petrarchan than mere imitators of the original style. Her faculties as a woman make her capable of subverting the topical themes of Petrarch, but she does so in a way that further reinforces the underlying message of longing that clouds over both Petrarch and her poetry like a thunderhead. Labé’s poems are not the poems of one who rejects Petrarch, they are the ultimate fulfillment of them! For Labé’s poems speak not of just a lonesome male poet enraptured by desire for his out-of-reach beloved, but instead of a mutual love, separation, and longing that cannot be fulfilled by facet of distance and circumstance. Although at first, the mutuality of Labé seems to skewer the Petrarchan convention, in truth Labé acts not as a jester but instead as the other half of the Petrarchan ideal. The object of admiration now fully matured as a woman who looks back into the soul of the poet and says “Yes, I desire you as well.” When confronted by his fiery passion.