A fascinating insight into the debates and controversies about the position of women in medieval culture, written by France's first professional woman of letters The pioneering Book of the City of Ladies begins when, feeling frustrated and miserable after reading a male writer's tirade against women, Christine de Pizan has a dreamlike vision where three virtues—Reason, Rectitude and Justice—appear to correct this view. They instruct her to build an allegorical city in which womankind can be defended against slander, its walls and towers constructed from examples of female achievement both from her own day and the past: ranging from warriors, inventors and scholars to prophetesses, artists and saints. Christine de Pizan's spirited defence of her sex was unique for its direct confrontation of the misogyny of her day, and offers a telling insight into the position of women in medieval culture. The Book of the City of Ladies provides positive images of women, ranging from warriors and inventors, scholars to prophetesses, and artists to saints. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Book of the City of Ladies (Penguin Classics)

Literature & Fiction

Christine De Pizan

Rosalind Brown-Grant

British & Irish

Penguin Classics

In 1401, Christine de Pizan (1365OCo1430?), one of the most renowned and prolific woman writers of the Middle Ages, wrote a letter to the provost of Lille criticizing the highly popular and widely read "Romance of the Rose" for its blatant and unwarranted misogynistic depictions of women. The debate that ensued, over not only the merits of the treatise but also of the place of women in society, started Europe on the long path to gender parity. PizanOCOs criticism sparked a continent-wide discussion of issues that is still alive today in disputes about art and morality, especially the civic responsibility of a writer or artist for the works he or she produces. In "Debate of the OC Romance of the Rose," OCO David Hult collects, along with the debate documents themselves, letters, sermons, and excerpts from other works of Pizan, including one from "City of Ladies"OCoher major defense of women and their rightsOCothat give context to this debate.aHere, PizanOCOs supporters and detractors are heard alongside her own formidable, protofeminist voice.a The resulting volume affords a rare look at the way people read and thought about literature in the period immediately preceding the era of print."

Debate of the Romance of the Rose

University of Chicago Press

"Altmann is making a major contribution by providing this much-needed text of Christine's significant but inadequately known debate poems, together with essential philological, codicological, and historical background, annotations, together with a landmark literary-critical preface."--Nadia Margolis, editor, "The Christine de Pizan Society Newsletter"\nThis new edition of Christine de Pizan's love debate poems supercedes the only other modern edition (1886) by working from all existing fifteenth century versions and by using as a base manuscript the version now generally acknowledged as the definitive copy. The poems, Livre du Debat de deux amans, the Livre des Trois jugemens, and the Livre du Dit de Poissy are spirited discussions, of approximately 2000 lines, concerning the finer points of late-medieval love doctrine and protocol. Written early in the fifteenth century, they are significant both because of their contribution to the tradition of debates and "dits" by such authors as Guillaume de Machaut, Jean Froissart, and Alain Chartier, and because their author is arguably the most important female writer in the west before Austen.\nAlongside the texts, Altmann provides the first extended study of these debates in their own right, offering a literary historical background to the form, analyzing Christine's use of the traditional form and content of the love debate, and providing sections on the codicology and philology of the poems. She also provides an introduction, summary, and textual notes for each of the poems as well as a glossary for nonspecialist readers.\nBarbara K. Altmann is associate professor of French at the University of Oregon and author of articles on French medieval verse in French Studies and elsewhere.

The Love Debate Poems of Christine de Pizan

University Press of Florida

The Book of the City of Ladies

History

World

Persea Books

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 (For Netherlandic Studies; 4)

Poetry

Persea

"Astonishing, original....an early chapter in women's revisionary history [that] offers true eloquence resurrected from the silence of the past."―The New York Times Book Review In dialogues with three celestial ladies, Reason, Rectitude, and Justice, Christine de Pizan (1365-ca. 1429) builds an allegorical fortified city for women using examples of the important contributions women have made to Western Civilization and arguments that prove their intellectual and moral equality to men. Earl Jeffrey Richards' acclaimed translation is used nationwide in the most eminent colleges and universities in America, from Columbia to Stanford.

World Literature

Book by Christine de Pizan, Jane Chance

Christine De Pizan's Letter of Othea to Hector: Translated With Introduction, Notes, and Interpretative Essay (The Focus Library of Medieval Women)

Jane Chance

State Univ of New York at

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 de 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. Aparaissent alors pour la consoler trois envoyées de Dieu: Raison, Droiture et Justice. Avec leur aide, Christine construira une cité imprenableoù les femmes seront à l'abri des calomnies. Les pierres de ce bel édifice seront les femmes du passé, guerrières, artistes et savantes, amoueuses 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 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 (Moyen Age)

Contemporary

Stock/Moyen Age

Cent Ballades D'amant Et De Dame

Union générale d'éditions

Un livre exceptionnel, écrit par une écrivaine hors norme pour d'autres femmes de son temps et de celui à venir afin de leur transmettre la mémoire des femmes du passé et leur faire ainsi un rempart contre des siècles de misogynie. 
Le Livre de la Cité des dames (entre 1404 et 1407) est un livre exceptionnel à plus d'un titre, écrit par une écrivaine hors norme pour d'autres femmes de son temps et de celui à venir afin de leur transmettre la mémoire des femmes du passé et leur faire ainsi un rempart contre des siècles de misogynie. C'est un livre savamment écrit et composé, le point d'aboutissement d'une part importante de l'œuvre de Christine de Pizan (1365-vers 1430), consacrée à la défense et illustration du sexe féminin tout entier. Poétesse renommée, elle a aussi écrit de nombreux ouvrages didactiques, historiques, politiques et moraux. Dans ce livre, Christine voit apparaître trois Dames couronnées, Raison, Droiture et Justice, qui lui enjoignent d'aller au " champ des lettres " et d'y construire une cité allégorique, dont les pierres et les habitantes seront des femmes qui se sont illustrées par leurs capacités dans tous les domaines de l'activité humaine. 
Cette œuvre s'inscrit dans un contexte historique et social bien éloigné du nôtre, mais elle continue cependant de parler aux femmes et aux hommes d'aujourd'hui. Elle est considérée comme l'une des plus importantes de l'écrivaine, mais le texte original reste peu accessible. On pourra lire ici pour la première fois une édition critique du texte d'après le dernier manuscrit réalisé sous la supervision de Christine de Pizan, accompagnée d'une nouvelle traduction, de notes et d'une introduction visant à rendre ce texte accessible au plus grand nombre de lectrices et lecteurs contemporains, des spécialistes aux simples amateurs ou curieux.

Le Livre de la Cité des dames

Genre Fiction

Champion

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Christine De Pizan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Christine De Pizan

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Christine De Pizan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Book of the City of Ladies (Penguin Classics)

Debate of the Romance of the Rose

The Love Debate Poems of Christine de Pizan

The Book of the City of Ladies

The Book of the Duke of True Lovers (For Netherlandic Studies; 4)

The Book of the City of Ladies

Christine De Pizan's Letter of Othea to Hector: Translated With Introduction, Notes, and Interpretative Essay (The Focus Library of Medieval Women)

Le Livre de la Cité des Dames (Moyen Age)

Cent Ballades D'amant Et De Dame

Le Livre de la Cité des dames