Louise Labé, also known as La Belle Cordière, or the Beautiful Ropemaker, was a French Renaissance poet who espoused early feminist values. She was well-educated as a young woman, and she began writing her own poetry in 1545. Her works in English include Complete poetry and prose: a bilingual edition and Love sonnets & elegies.
The French poet Louise Labé, who wrote Sonnet 8, lived as a middle-class citizen in 16th century France. In this poem, she used the Petrarchan form to explain the positive and negative effects of love.
I live, I die: I burn myself, I drown.
I'm hot in the extreme while suffering cold.
Life is too soft for me, too hard to hold.
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