Selected Poems and Translations: A Bilingual Edition (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe)

Madeleine de l Aubespine (1546 1596), the toast of courtly and literary circles in sixteenth-century Paris, penned beautiful love poems to famous women of her day. The well-connected daughter and wife of prominent French secretaries of state, l Aubespine was celebrated by her male peers for her erotic lyricism and scathingly original voice.

Rather than adopt the conventional self-effacement that defined female poets of the time, l Aubespine s speakers are sexual, dominant, and defiant; and her subjects are women who are able to manipulate, rebuke, and even humiliate men.
Unavailable in English until now and only recently identified from scattered and sometimes misattributed sources, l Aubespine s poems and literary works are presented here in Anna Klosowska s vibrant translation. This collection, which features one of the first French lesbian sonnets as well as reproductions of l Aubespine s poetic translations of Ovid and Ariosto, will be heralded by students and scholars in literature, history, and women s studies as an important addition to the Renaissance canon.