Christine (de Pisan)

Christine de Pisan

It is unexpected in any era to find a woman writing a book on the art of warfare, but in the fifteenth century it was unbelievable. Not surprisingly, therefore, Christine de Pizan's The Book of Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry, written around 1410, has often been regarded with disdain. Many have assumed that Christine was simply copying or pilfering earlier military manuals. But, as Sumner Willard and Charity Cannon Willard show in this faithful English translation, The Book of Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry contains much that is original to Christine. As a military manual it tells us a great deal about the strategy, tactics, and technology of medieval warfare and is one of our most important sources for early gunpowder weapon technology. It also includes a fascinating discussion of Just War. Since the end of the fifteenth century, The Book of Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry has been available primarily through Antoine Vérard's imprint of 1488 or William Caxton's 1489 translation, The Book of the Order of Chivalry. Vérard even suggested that the work was his own translation of the Roman writer Vegetius, making no mention of Christine 's name. Caxton attributed the work to Christine, but it is impossible to identify the manuscript he used for his translation. Moreoever, both translations are inaccurate. The Willards correct these inaccuracies in a clear and easy-to-read translation, which they supplement with notes and an introduction that will greatly benefit students, scholars, and enthusiasts alike. Publication of this work should change our perception both of medieval warfare and of Christine de Pizan.

The Book of Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry

Née à Venise en 1364, fille de l'astrologue de Charles V, poétesse, historienne, moraliste, Christine de Pizan serait "le premier auteur" de la littérature française. Mariée à quinze ans, mère de trois enfants, bientôt veuve, elle met à profit l'éducation reçue de son père. Championne de son sexe, elle dénonce la misogynie courante à son époque, en particulier dans les milieux cléricaux. La Cité des Dames couronne son oeuvre féministe. Profondément déprimée par la lecture d'une satire misogyne, Christine se lamente d'être née femme. Apparaissent alors pour la consoler trois envoyées de Dieu: Raison, Droiture et Justice. Avec leur aide, Christine construira une cité imprenable où les femmes seront à l'abri des calomnies. Les pierres de ce bel édifice seront les femmes du passé, guerrières, artistes et savantes, amoureuses et saintes! L'argumentation surprend par sa modernité: Christine y aborde le viol, l'égalité des sexes, l'accès des femmes au savoir... La Cité des Dames apparaît ainsi comme un ouvrage capital pour l'histoire des femmes et pour la pensée occidentale à l'aube des temps modernes.

Le livre de la cité des dames

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The City of Ladies

A cidade das damas

Charity Cannon Willard

Christine de Pizan, France's first woman of letters, is widely known for her classic Book of the City of Ladies (Persea, 1982), but very few of her many other distinguished works have been translated into English. The Writings of Christine de Pizan offers lengthy excerpts of nearly all of Christine's works, in authoritative and gracious translations. Among the writings are Christine's autobiography; lyric and allegorical poetry; the official biography of King Charles V; writings on women, warfare, politics, love, and the human condition; writings from the famous Quarrel of the Rose; The Book of the City of Ladies; The Treasury of the City of Ladies; The Book of the Duke of True Lovers; and Christine's triumphant poem on Joan of Arc. Edited and with an introduction by the foremost authority on Christine's work, Charity Cannon Willard, who sets the writings in historical, biographical, and literary context.

The Writings of Christine de Pizan

Jane Chance

Christine de Pizan (1364-?1430) was the first French woman poet to make her living by the pen, and the first female interpreter of classical myths; she held enormous power in the French court and influenced late medieval culture in France and in England in a number of ways. The Letter of Othea to Hector, her most popular work, is a series of a hundred verse texts about a mythological figure or moment, with prose moral glosses explaining how to read the myth in order to improve human character. It is translated here with introduction, notes, and interpretative essay.

Christine de Pizan's Letter of Othea to Hector

The Book of the Mutability of Fortune

Le livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V

Recounts the progress of a fifteen-year, clandestine love affair between the Duke, a young knight, and a married noblewoman in fourteenth century France.

The Book of the Duke of True Lovers

皮桑

妇女城

Autobiography of a Medieval Woman (1363-1430)

Christine de Pizan attracted an international audience of admirers her during her lifetime, including many readers in England. The Boke of the Cyte of Ladyes (1521) is the earliest English translation of Le Livre de la cité des dames (ca. 1405) and the only version printed in French or English before the twentieth century. Her work stands as an early stronghold against misogynist thinking, with more than one hundred stories about women's capacity for intelligence and virtue assembled under the auspices of Reason, Rectitude, and Justice to form an allegorical City of Ladies. Modern readers can now rediscover Christine de Pizan's landmark defense of women in the French and English of its original readers. This new edition offers rich material for scholars interested in gender studies, history, humanism, and the field of Anglo-French literature. The facing page format lets readers closely compare the fifteenth-century Middle French of its female author with the sixteenth-century English text by a male translator. A critical introduction and scholarly annotations enhance its usefulness as a resource for students and critics.

Livre de la Cité Des Dames Engl

Christine De Pizan

A fifteenth-century instruction book for women provides an inside look at life in medieval France and discusses the role of women on each economic level

The Treasury of the City of Ladies

A Medieval Woman's Mirror of Honor

Translation of Christine's autobiographical Vision, both dealing with her own life and career, and offering a possible solution to the troubled state of France at the time.

The Vision of Christine de Pizan

Contains selections from eighteen major works by Christine de Pizan, Europe's first professional woman writer, presented in contemporary translation with annotations, and includes an introduction, and seven critical analyses.

New Translations, Criticism

The Selected Writings of Christine de Pizan

Maureen Cheney Curnow

A Critical Edition

The Livre de la Cité Des Dames of Christine de Pisan

Karen Green

"An English translation of The Book of Peace, written between 1412 and 1414 by Christine de Pizan, one of the earliest known women authors. Translated material is side by side with the original French text"--Provided by publisher.

Christine (de Pisan)

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