“Love Has no Middle” On the Play of Extremes in the Sonets pour Helene

The Petrarchan use of antithesis between “opposite extremes” lends itself to excesses and mises en abyme, which can be kept in check to varying degrees. Here, we examine how the Sonets pour Helene crystallize the play of contrasts between pleasure and suffering, celebration and denunciation of love or the loved one; and how their textual context—Volume I of the Œuvres of 1578 and the strategic publication of the Amours diverses the same year—fosters these oppositions, while making it possible to reel them in when they go too far.