The Book of the City of Ladies (Penguin Classics) [Paperback]

Christine de Pizan (Author), Rosalind Brown-Grant (Author)

Book Description

Series: Penguin Classics | Publication Date: January 1, 2000

Christine de Pizan (c.1364 1430) was France's first professional woman of letters. Her pioneering Book of the City of Ladies begins when, feeling frustrated and miserable after reading a male writer's tirade against women, Christine 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 CITY OF LADIES provides positive images of women, ranging from warriors and inventors, scholars to prophetesses, and artists to saints. The book also offers a fascinating insight into the debates and controversies about the position of women in medieval culture.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French

About the Author

Christine de Pizan (1364-c.1430) was one of the most remarkable and respected literary figures in the courts of medieval Europe. She was the only professional woman writer of her time and secured an enviable reputation with her lyric poetry. She went on to write with success on moral and political issues, as well as producing a biography of Charles V. Rosalind Brown-Grant is Lecturer in French at the University of Leeds, where she specializes in medieval literature. Rosalind Brown-Grant took he BA and Ph.D. at the University of Manchester and is now Lecturer in French at the University of Leeds, where she specialises in medieval literature.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (January 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140446893
• ISBN-13: 978-0140446890
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 7.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #65,431 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #37 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Women's Studies > Women Writers
  • #61 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > French
  • #99 in Books > Education & Reference > Foreign Language Nonfiction > French

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Une généalogie au féminin", May 19, 2002

By 

Julie Fifelski - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Book of the City of Ladies (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

LA CITE DES DAMES was one of the first medieval books I have read (but I am by no means an expert in the area... yet!), and I recommend it to not only those interested in this period, but also for those interested in what we would call "women's studies," historiography, or similar endeavors.

It is filled with many interesting stories from ancient times to Christine's own time, which also makes the book a pretty entertaining (and sometimes even humorous) account of the historic figures it discusses. Christine herself was an amazing person, so if you buy it, be sure not to skip the introduction - especially if you are unfamiliar with medieval writings: Some of the ideas presented (and how they are presented) are much different than how we would think in modern times, so it is important to familiarize yourself with things like massive over-proving (which may end up being tedious to the unsuspecting reader), Christine's view on marriage, and literary conventions that would perhaps seem very silly to us now, but worked well 600 years ago. Basically, when reading this book, if you keep in mind the context in which it was written, you should be able to appreciate it and like it just as I have.

(by the way -- the book I read was not the Penguin edition, but rather the 1998 English translation by Earl Richards, ISBN 0892552301, so unless you're planning on extensive criticism, you should be okay with this version).

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Fortress from Frustration, July 2, 2004

By 

Stacey M Jones (Conway, Ark.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Book of the City of Ladies (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

THE BOOK OF THE CITY OF LADIES by Christine de Pizan is an allegory written in the early 1400s as an effort to defend womankind from spurious attacks by the male gender. The BOOK itself serves as the city, the protection and community of good women who show that the defamatory collective statements about women (they are greedy, they are inconstant, they are not chaste, etc.) are not true.

De Pizan was born in 1365 in Venice. When she was a small child, the French King Charles V gave her father a position at his court (he served as astrologer). The family's close ties to the court afforded Christine a good education, which was unusual at the time (and opposed by her mother). Though the family's fortunes faded, Christine made a happy marriage and had three children. When her husband died in 1389, de Pizan turned to writing to make her living. She became a highly respected voice on the status of women.

The book is structured around three ladies of heaven coming to visit Christine and charging her with building the City of Ladies. Christine has just been reading a book by Mathéolus, who is deeply critical of womankind, and Christine is upset and discouraged. The women are Reason, Rectitude and Justice. While they help her build and populate the city, Christine asks them to defend womenkind against various charges she hears brought against women, and they do so, each getting her own book of the work. The responses are examples of women in history, some biblical, some historical, some mythological (but these are explained by the Christian Christine as being real women whose fame was so renowned that their societies thought they were goddesses and began to worship them). Interestingly, she retells some women's histories differently: Medea is a woman who deeply loved her husband, the same with Socrates' wife.

The book has an extensive index, which is helpful, because one learns so much about so many different women. Nearly ever vignette could be turned into a novel, a la THE RED TENT. The section by Justice at the end is the most monotonous, as it is basically a Lives of the Saints about the virgin martyrs, and their stories are nearly all the same: Some man wants Virgin Martyr X. She doens't want him. He tricks and entreats her. She says no. He has her tortured (usually her breasts are pulled off). She withstands torture due to God's help (she sings out of a pot of boiling water into which she is placed head first; 12 men tire of beating her, but still she is unhurt). God calls her home and she dies happily.

I think the first two sections (which are longer than the last) are very interesting historically and I was happy to read particularly of Lavinia and Margaret (my mother's names) and Anastasia (like my name). The Women of Heaven make the point often that men's behavior in the world puts them in no position to criticize women. The book would make a nice kind of "devotional" or meditative reading source, a woman for each day, or something like that, if you didn't want to read it all at once.

The sad thing is that women, as a whole, still endure these ridiculous criticisms. If you tire, like Christine, of hearing these baseless charges, you may want to retire to the BOOK OF THE CITY OF LADIES.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Witty and revealing look at a period primary source, July 14, 2001

By 

Cas (the Idaho mountains) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: The Book of the City of Ladies (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

Christine falls asleep while contemplating why women in her society get such a bad rap, and has a long dream about exemplary women and their characteristics.

Did you ever wonder why we just accept that women in the Middle Ages were considered demons in disguise? Christine tells us all about what she thinks of that concept and of those who insist on spreading such maliciousness, all in an engaging story full of examples of brave, courageous, intelligent, pious, beautiful, generous women. The book was written to dispel some of the nastier slanders then current about women, but it's still good reading today.

I confess that during the part about martyrs I wandered off a bit (it is some gruesome stuff in places), but as a period source, it's definitely one every history maven ought to have. Christine is intelligent, observant, and witty; her writing fairly sparkles with indignation over the treatment of women and her sardonic amusement at those men spreading those lies. While hyper-Catholic and in places highly allegorical (and in many places its version of "history" is highly questionable, of course), it is an essential look at a time period where women didn't often make their views known in written form.

This book is distinct from "The Book of the Treasure of the City of Ladies".