Subject of Desire: Petrarchan Poetics and the Female Voice in Louise Labe

The Subject of Desire traces Labe's restructuring of the female subject and speaking voice through a detailed, integrated study of all four texts comprising the 1555 Euvres. Through a series of dose readings, the book highlights Labe's revision of Petrarchan poetics and her creation of an original voice in the evolution of the French Renaissance lyric. In detailing Labe's movement from acute interiority to active exteriority, The Subject of Desire reveals how Labe struggles to construct a new set of values concerning communication about love in both public and private discourse-values that her readers are called upon to consider as they face the complexities of their own personal experiences.