Art Madsen, M.Ed.
Her talent was recognized by those around her, and, even though she shifted allegiance back and forth to various kings (Richard II of England, at one point) and aristocrats, such as the Duc de Bourgogne, she managed to protect her young son and herself, in a harsh world. This accomplishment influenced her thinking and, therefore, the thematic content of her work greatly (Ingoglia, 2000). Events in Christine’s life are recorded, vicariously, in many of her characterizations and in a number of plots and sub-plots. The richness of her style, even though it is excessively tedious in some places, is directly linked to her real life experience, as is the thrust of her ideology, an ideology that, in today’s terms, would be considered feminist and somewhat moralizing. These were qualities, in my estimation, that led to her lasting fame over the ages.
Building on these notions, what seemingly made her a great writer were the far-reaching comparisons, the rich metaphors, the grasp of historical figures, and the ornate texture of her accounts and narratives. Blumenfeld-Kosinski (1996) points to the feeling nature of her writing, offset and complemented by her physical presence as a woman. Christine’s ability to project her sensitivities and inner-thoughts to the reader is highly developed. In her Cité des Dames, for example, Christine is able to transmit her pride, assertiveness and personal verve, along with descriptive narratives of the lives of prominent women. We also learn in this book that she sought to demonstrate that women apparently possess natural affinities, or interconnectedness, for all areas of social activity (Pizan, 1994). Much of what she asserts in her various books is open to question, from an historical standpoint, but Christine, having been schooled thoroughly in belles lettres, the arts, and history, is careful to build her tales on at least the foundations of truthfulness (Pizan, 1994). In doing so, she strengthens her case in the reader’s eyes and reaps the rewards that posterity has bestowed upon her.
Thematic
Material Forming the Groundwork of Christine’s Renown
With respect to her early poems, there is a noteworthy number of them falling into the category of the medieval Love Debate in which Christine examines the vicissitudes of amorous relationships (Altmann, 1998; Kennedy, 1999). She sometimes focuses on the position of men, even though her primary interest seems to be how women perceive the love relationship. Although she was still in the early stages of her literary career at the time of these poems, i.e. before 1399, her insights are fairly profound and her mastery of the three mentioned poetic styles then in vogue at Court was commendable, even superior to her Master, Deschamps, in the estimation of some critics, notably Le Gentil (1968) who seems to extol the virtues of Christine’s verse, in close juxtaposition to a less glowing article on Deschamps in his referenced volume.
Christine’s early poetry, much admired for its lilting lyric quality, did much to increase her visibility during her lifetime, even though her personal existence would be considered quite tragic and precarious by today’s standards, due to the death of her husband and the need to offer her 13-year old son to aristocratic ‘protectors?in England and later in France. Under these sad circumstances, Christine presented a lovely poem to her son, stating essentially, that she was without money, but could offer him wise advice. These two stanzas from “Christine to Her Son? excerpted from a well-reputed D.C. Heath publication on the Middle Ages, are especially poignant:
Before the world has
borne you far,
Try to know people as they are.
Knowing that will help you take
The path that keeps you from mistake.
Pity anyone who is
poor
And stands in rags outside your door
Help them when you hear them cry!
Remember that you, too will die.
(Crook, et al.,
1995)
With
sentiments expressed in terms such as these, even more beautiful in the
original French, it is not surprising that Christine de Pizan’s reputation was
enhanced over the ages. We see, here, a
mother, surrounded by rapacious men, trying to defend herself and her young
child from the hardships of life in the late 14th Century, giving
her son advice on how to “try to know people?and their true character, and how
to be kind to the poor, in spite of her own impecunious state and inability to
offer more tangible assistance and guidance due to distance between herself and
her son, not to mention other intervening social factors. The emotion and poignancy, therefore, of her
situation is not lost on the reader of this poem, nor of hundreds of others
written with equal grace and profundity.
As Christine’s poetic period drew to a
close, she wrote longer poems and dealt with more serious subject matter. She turned to techniques involving irony and
wry humor in order to project her feelings about men’s frequently insincere
thoughts and actions toward women. Because of this approach, Christine’s works
gained popularity in centuries to follow and achieved a certain depth and
degree of seriousness that at least challenged her contemporaries, such as
Eustache Deschamps and Alain Chartier, who praised Joan of Arc, as did
Christine later in life. This added to her general appeal, particularly among
scholars over the centuries who began to place her into proper
perspective. They invariably assigned
her the station of a great author by virtue of sheer volume, and equally so,
because of the thematic content of her writings.
Shortly after writing The Letter to
the God of Love in 1399, marking a turning point in her literary
development, Christine became embroiled in an ideological dispute that also
contributed to her fame in later years (Le Gentil, 1968). Le Roman de la Rose (The Romance of the
Rose), written earlier by Jean de Meung, had criticized women as being
flighty and superficial. Christine
thought very much the contrary and gained a reasonable amount of publicity in
her own lifetime by refuting Jean de Meung’s thesis.
There were dozens of major works penned
by Christine during the mid-years of her career, forming the apogee of her life
in many respects, and increasing her fame then and now. One such work was The Book of Deeds of
Arms and Chivalry (Williard, 1999) in which she advances her hypotheses and
themes on the perhaps noble, but futile, nature of warfare, most of which
remain constant throughout the body of her work. Another is her book of Moral Proverbs some of which are
reflected in other works as underlying motifs (Pizan, Theatrum Orbis
Terrarum, 1970). One that echoed
the themes of the Cité des Dames because of its allegorical figures was
the Book of Three Virtues, as translated by Garay and Jeay (1989). Christine thrived on thematic material that
promoted her main thrust, and that thrust was what essentially led to her
reputation during her lifetime, two centuries later (Perret, 1996), and to her
fame in modern times, as well, ?arguably leaving only a few chronological gaps
due to overshadowing figures in the Renaissance, throughout Classicism, and
during the European Romantic Period of the 19th Century. This
recognition, notwithstanding the mentioned gaps, is in keeping with the
hypothesis of this paper, to the effect that Christine was, and remains, a
brilliant star in the literary firmament.
Toward the end of her life, Christine
sought refuge in a convent, the Abbaye de Poissy, which escaped destruction
during wars with the British, where she ultimately passed away (Sartori, et
al.1991). Her final great work was
a rousing tribute to the 16 year old girl who saved France, Joan of Arc. It came roughly during the timeframe when
she learned that her son had died in 1425, and she devoted the last years of
her life, not only to Joan of Arc, a fabulous feminist iconic figure, but to a
tragic, forlorn work poignantly revealing the love of a mother for her son,
entitled The Hours of Contemplation of the Passion, commemorating The
Virgin Mary’s grief over the body of her crucified Son. It contained an admixture of strong feeling,
light feminist views and (mostly) maternal love (Solterer, 1995).
If any one subject heading could be
assigned, however, to the entire body of Christine’s work, it would be her
analyses of love and a man’s relationship to women, all viewed through a
feminist prism. By refining her
techniques and taking full advantage of her knowledge-base, she was able to
achieve a degree of literary notoriety and immortality, as confirmed in the
scholarly works of Blumenfeld-Kosinski (1997) and Huot (1999).
The Relevance of Christine’s
Thematic Focus
to Her Fame Over the
Centuries
Looking at Christine’s
wide-ranging and sophisticated contribution to the literature and cultural
erudition of her time and relating it to the relative continuity of her fame is
not an especially difficult task, in spite of some critics who seem convinced
that her thinking is superficial. In reality, the writings I was able to survey
briefly seem filled with quite impressive material relating to mythology (Huot,
1999) and to Roman figures such as Diocletian, notably in her work The Body
of Policy, an attack on the inane conduct of men in major historical or
critical situations (Kennedy, 1998; Pizan, 1971). She is mentioned in an impressive array of academic sources, such
as in book reviews and articles, also praising her insight, particularly in the
distinguished journal Medium Aevum (Huot 2000). All of this can be construed to contribute
meaningfully to Christine’s primacy in relation to many of her contemporaries,
not to mention those men and women to follow in her footsteps.
It would be
foolish to argue that a writer’s fame is not linked to the stature and breadth
of his or her writing. There are certainly those qualities that contribute to
fame and longevity, but there are certainly others. In the case of Christine de
Pizan, the relevancy of her quite sophisticated maternal, womanly and feminist
themes to her fame has been, I feel, adequately demonstrated in this
report. Because of their ageless
topicality, these themes have won the hearts and minds of both men and women in
many cultural settings. The initial premise of this report was that Christine
overshadows even her early Master, Eustache Deschamps, himself a renowned
lyricist, and has achieved excellence beyond most of her contemporaries,
largely due to the grasp of her knowledge, the sweep and command of her more
than 20 famous books, and the emotional plea for ongoing persistence and
courage that she has made, from deep within the 14th Century, to all
women of the future. There seems little
doubt but that this premise has been adequately supported by the information
brought to bear in these pages. Christine de Pizan was, indeed, a woman for all
time.
Altmann, B. The Love Debate Poems of Christine de Pizan, University Press of Florida, Gainesville, 1998.
Blumenfeld-Kosinski, R., ?Femme de corps et femme par sens? Christine de Pizan's saintly women? Romanic Review, March 1996, 157-175
Blumenfeld-Kosinski, R.,
Editor, The selected writings of Christine de Pizan: New Translations,
Criticism / Translated by Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Brownlee, W.W. Norton
& Co., New York, N.Y., 1997.
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and Co, Lexington, MA,1995. Also available on the WWW: http://www.byu.edu/ipt/projects/middleages/People/DePisan.html
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Huot, S. “Reading Myth - Book Review? Medium Aevum, 68:2, 1999, 333-334.
Ingoglia, R., Reviewer, “Christine de Pizan and the Moral Defence of Women: Reading
Beyond Gender?by Rosalind Brown-Grant, Choice, Middletown, Jul/Aug 2000.
Kennedy, A. “Florus and Diocletian: a crux in Christine de Pizan's Livre du
corps de policie.? Medium Aevum, 67:2 1998, 313-15.
Kennedy, A. “The love debate poems of Christine de Pizan? Medium Aevum, 68:2, 1999, 350-351.
Le Gentil, P. La Littérature Française du Moyen Age, Armand Colin, Paris, 1968.
Perret, D. “Va Lettre Va? The Sixteenth Century Journal, Spring '96, 299-300.
Pizan, C. The Body of Polycye,/ Livre du corps de policie, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum / Da Capo Press, New York, N.Y.1971.
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Pizan, C. Le Livre
des Trois Vertus, Translation by Garay and Jeay, H., Champion, Paris, 1989.
22-23.
Pizan, C. The morale
prouerbes of Christyne. Proverbs moraux, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum /Da Capo
Press, New York, N.Y., 1970.
Sartori, M. and Zimmerman, D., French Women Writers, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1991.
Solterer, H. “Flaming words: verbal violence and gender in premodern Paris? Romanic
Review, March 1995, 355-378.
Willard C., Editor, Christine de Pizan: The book of deeds of arms and of chivalry / Livre des faits d'armes et de chevalerie: Translated by Sumner Willard, Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA, 1999.