Louise Labe (1522-1566) is the most well-known and celebrated woman writer of non-noble birth from the French Renaissance. While her published work (OEuvres, 1555) is modest in length, the variety of genres she employs (epistle, sonnet, elegy, prose dialogue), the robust evidence of her proto-feminist vocation, her strength of voice, and her mastery of Petrarchan and Neoplatonic conventions have made of her a hugely important figure in the literature of this period.
