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.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Müller, C. M., (2025), "Celebrating Difference: The Self as Double in the Works of Louise Labé", HSSCommons: (DOI: )

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1. Renaissance and Reformation

Original publication: Müller, Catherine M. "Celebrating Difference: The Self as Double in the Works of Louise Labé." Renaissance and Reformation 35 (1): 2010. 59-71. DOI: 10.33137/rr.v35i1.10680. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Iter Canada / Renaissance and Reformation. Copyright © the author(s). Their work is distributed by Renaissance and Reformation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For details, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.