Celebrating Difference: The Self as Double in the Works of Louise Labé

This essay examines the figure of the double in Sonnet VIII of Louise Labé in relation to the theme of the androgyne in the Débat de Folie et d'Amour and in the light of the proto-feminist claims of her "Épître Dédicatoire." It suggests that the poet from Lyon, in inscribing dialogue at the very heart of her Oeuvres as the motive force of an écriture du plaisir, opposes herself to the literary tradition of her age and heralds the great debates of the twentieth century regarding sexual difference and literary subjectivity