Louise Labé and Semiramis: A Feminist Reading

Abstract

The example of Semiramis in Louise Labé's first elegy reverses misogynistic trends current throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance by emphasizing Semiramis' earlier reputation as a great warrior and builder and re-contextualizing her reputation for incest andsexual excess. Thus a poem ostensibly about the power of love, in a literary genre conventionally participating in the subordination or silencing of women, celebrates the power of poetry to transform history, giving women a place in the center.