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The Book of The City of Ladies: Christine de Pizan
The Book of The City of Ladies: Christine de Pizan
The Book of The City of Ladies: Christine de Pizan
Christine de Pizan
(c.1364-1430)
• “....Thus you accuse me, a woman, of folly and presumption in daring to correct and
reproach a teacher as exalted, well-qualified, and worthy as you claim the author of
that book to be. Hence, you earnestly exhort me to recant and repent....”
• “But, further, if you seek in every way to minimize my firm beliefs by your anti-feminist
attacks, please recall that a small dagger or knife point can pierce a great, bulging
sack and that a small fly can attack a great lion and speedily put him to flight. ”
Another Letter
• This to Pierre Col – another royal secretary
• “....And since you are angry at me without reason, you attack me harshly
with, "Oh outrageous presumption! Oh excessively foolish pride! Oh opinion
uttered too quickly and thoughtlessly by the mouth of a woman! A woman
who condemns a man of high understanding and dedicated study, a man
who, by great labor and mature deliberation, has made the very noble book
of the Rose, which surpasses all others that were ever written in French.
When you have read this book a hundred times, provided you have
understood the greater part of it, you will discover that you could never have
put your time and intellect to better use!“
• “I was already midway through the journey of my pilgrimage when one day
at eventide, I found myself fatigued by the long road and desirous of shelter.
Since I had arrived here through a desire for sleep, after I said grace and
taken and received the nourishment necessary for human life, I
recommended myself to the author of all things and betook myself to a bed
of troubled rest.”
• "Friend, to whom God and Nature have conceded the gift of a love of study
far beyond the common lot of women, prepare parchment, quill, and ink,
and write the words issuing from my breast; for I wish to reveal everything to
you."
• ...[W]hen I was at the two fonts of Philosophy themselves---those noble
fountains so bright and wholesome---I, like a young and pampered fool, took
not my fill of them, even though the beautiful water pleased me; rather, just
like the simpleton who sees the bright sun shining and considers not the
rain but thinks it will last forever, I neglected those things and thought to
recover my loss in time....
• For with my present desires, if I had such clarity at my side now, being
completely devoted to study and wearied of all other useless occupations
and pastimes, I would replenish myself from those fountains so exceedingly
and thoroughly that no woman born for a long time would surpass me.
L'Avision-Christine (1405)
• Then Nature ordered Christine to write
• She told me, "Take the tools and strike the anvil. The
material I will give you is so durable that neither iron or fire
nor anything else will be able to destroy it. So forge
pleasing things.”
• (1.XXVIII) I have heard of Esther, Judith and Deborah, who were women of
great worth, through whom God delivered is people from oppression, and I
have heard of many other worthy women as well, champions every one,
through them He performed many miracles, but He has accomplished more
through this Maid.
• (1.XXXIV) Oh! What honour for the female sex! It is perfectly obvious that
God has special regard for it when all these wretched people who destroyed
the whole Kingdom - now recovered and made safe by a woman, some
thing that 5000 men could not have done - and the traitors [have been]
exterminated. Before the event they would scarcely have believed this
possible.
Ballade
• The actual plot of The Book of the City of Ladies begins when three
allegorical goddesses arrive and tell Christine that she must build a city for
honorable women of all types. Reason, Rectitude and Justice tell Christine:
“We have come to vanquish from the world the same problem upon which
you have fallen, so that from now on, ladies and valiant women may have a
refuge and a defense against the various assailants”.
• This allegoric need for a space where women can come together points to
the key element of feminist history: the formation of group subjectivity and
shared consciousness between women of all sorts.
Pizan’s Solutions
• Clearing the Field of Letters
• Building Walls
• Revisionism
Clearing the Field of Letters
• Pizan moves away from scholarly “fact” and toward her own
personal experience (the personal as “political”). In addressing the
Romance of the Rose and other texts like it that speak poorly of
women, Christine’s first response is to debunk their writing on the
basis of common-sense logic. “I could not see or realize how their
claims could be true when compared to the natural behavior and
character of women”. This argument is the first step in her
allegorical process of clearing out the field of letters for the
foundation of her city: with a literary shovel, Lady Reason helps her
debunk this and other miscomprehensions of misogyny.
• Amazons worshiped Artemis the virgin goddess of the hunt, and Ares the
god of war. They also took men prisoner in battle, after choosing the most
handsome they then used them for their sexual pleasure, and would either
kill them or use them as slaves once their usefulness had been expended.
• If they gave birth to a male, they would kill, blind or cripple the infant. If they
kept them alive they would then use them when they grew into young men
(if they were suitable) as a supply of male seed.
• “For, according to the story, the king was watching and saw that it
was her ship that made the attack. What is more, one of the people
with him said, " Master, do you see how well Artemisia is fighting?
She has sunk an enemy ship." When the king asked whether it was
really Artemisia who had done so, they confirmed it was because
they recognised her vessel's flag clearly and assumed that she had
sunk an enemy ship. As far as the rest of the story goes, the
incident turned out to her advantage because no one from the
Calyndian ship survived to bring a charge against her. Xerxes is
said to have replied to the news, "My men have become women and
my women, men." This, they say, was the king's response. ”
Artemisia - Rembrandt
Pizan’s Account
• In short, she fought so well that she
crushed Xerxes as thoroughly on sea as
she had done on land. The dishonourable
king then took to his heels and fled … (p.
53)
Cloelia
• Modern historians debate whether the story of Cloelia is
a genuine historical record or a myth, although the truth
of the account was widely upheld by the Romans
themselves. According to Roman tradition, Cloelia was
one of the young Roman girls given as hostages to Lars
Porsenna, king of the Etruscan town of Chiusi. Cloelia,
however, escaped her captors, swimming across the
river Tiber. She also led many of the other Roman girls
to safety. Porsenna was furious when he learned of the
escape, but he eventually came to admire Cloelia's
courage. He granted her a promise of safety, should she
return to his camp, and even swore to return her to her
parents when his troops had left Roman territory. In later
times of peace, Rome celebrated her courage by
building a statue of her on the Via Sacra.
Manto
• The daughter of Tiresias of Thebes. After Thebes was
taken by the Epigonoi, Manto was brought back to Apollo
at Delphi as war prize. Apollo ordered the girl to found a
oracle of him in Colophon (Asia Minor). There, she
became the mother of the seer Mopsus. According to
another tradition, she ended up in Italy where she
became by Tiberinus the mother of Ocnus, the founder
of Mantua (Mantova) (Virgil X, 199). Other sources
mention that the city was named after a different Manto,
who was regarded as the daughter of Heracles. Mantua
is also connected to Mantus, god of the underworld.
Pizan: “Being gifted and intelligent she acquired a complete
knowledge of pyromancy, the art of diving the future from fire.
Medea
• Medea was a devotee of the goddess Hecate, and one of the great
sorceresses of the ancient world. She was the daughter of King Aeetes of
Colchis, and the granddaughter of Helios, the sun god.
• King Aeetes' most valuable possession was a golden ram's fleece. When
Jason and the crew of the Argo arrived at Colchis seeking the Golden
Fleece, Aeetes was unwilling to relinquish it and set Jason a series of
seemingly impossible tasks as the price of obtaining it. Medea fell in love
with Jason and agreed to use her magic to help him, in return for Jason's
promise to marry her.
• Medea bore Jason two children before Jason forsook her in order to marry
the daughter of Creon, the king of Corinth. Medea got revenge for Jason's
desertion by killing the new bride with a poisoned robe and crown which
burned the flesh from her body; King Creon died as well when he tried to
embrace his dying daughter. Medea fled Corinth in a chariot, drawn by
winged dragons, which belonged to her grandfather Helios. She took with
her the bodies of her two children, whom she had murdered in order to give
Jason further pain.
Pizan’s Account
… good sense …
Cassandra