From the moment I began reading, I found myself wondering why we had been assigned so little material over the weekend, and figured that what text there was must be very significant to course themes. Not surprisingly, The Treasure of the City of the Ladies leads back to a discussion of feminism and rhetoric.
I’m still making up my mind about my
opinion on the piece. However, something
I appreciated about the samples from both of Christine de Pizan’s texts is that
she is clearly not writing a defense of women only to be read by a male audience
(although apparently she did write defenses of this kind, meant to convince
both male and female readers). In this
instance, she writes for women in order to teach women; this obviously demands that the female readers be able to read. Therefore, she is promoting the education of women in general.
It interests me that Hortensia and
Novella, two women who received atypical extensive education in their
respective times, seemed to be fortunate in this regard because their fathers
were unusually understanding (545).
Christine de Pizan, on the other hand, had to pursue writing as a career
out of necessity upon the death of her own father (540). It would also seem that difficulties in her
own life impacted her work: “Christine advises women on how they should use
language to protect themselves,” as “a widow might have to defend herself in
court, for example – as Christine herself had done” (542). What's the
story behind that statement? Does anyone know?
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