De Pizan, Christine
Entry updated 3 June 2024. Tagged: Author.
(1364-circa 1430) Italian-born poet and author, in France from early childhood. Her name has been variously spelled:her surname has also been given as de Pisan; she was born Cristina da Pizzano. A Feminist decoding of her life justifies the claim that she is the first European woman to support herself as a professional author (Aphra Behn may be the second). She cannot be profitably added to the roster of Proto SF writers, but in the context of the early fifteenth century – which is to say long before the identifiable genres of Fantastika began to gell – some of her voluminous output can be read for its strong Taproot interest [for Taproot Texts see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below].
De Pizan remains best known for Le Livre de la Cité des Dames ["The Book of the City of Ladies"] (written circa 1405), a text structured somewhere between allegorical Utopia and Theatre of Memory (see Frances A Yates). The City of Ladies – which is a Library, a glossary, and the book itself lying before the reader – unfolds through emblematic manifestations of the 165 exemplary women whose lives and works make mock of misogyny. [JC]
Christine de Pizan
born Venice, Republic of Venice: September 1364
died Poissy, Îles-de-France, France: circa 1430
works (highly selected; no attempt has been made to trace the full bibliography of cited title)
- Le Livre de la Cité des Dames ["The Book of the City of Ladies"] (Paris: publisher not identified, 1405) [several manuscripts extant: written circa 1405: na/]
- The Book of the City of Ladies and Other Writings (Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing, 2018) [omni: trans by Ineke Hardy of the above and other works: preferred text: various earlier translations have been published: pb/]
links
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