ABSTRACT
Joan of Arc, the most celebrated woman in French history, provides a perfect emblem to enhance French patriotism that is exploited. Joan of Arc, dressed as a soldier, fighting in the French army, likewise adopts a masculine role. Although Julia Walker and Anne Lutkus suggest that Ditie should be considered first a political text praising Joan's deeds over those of the dauphin and thus implying a strong criticism of Charles's decisions,19 Joan's femaleness and virginity play a fundamental part in the poem. Christine de pizan's vivid interest in the situation of women and her constant demands on men to change their attitude toward women, leads her to confirm Joan as virtuous woman. The self-congratulatory verse ending the homage to Joan of Arc, "Explicit ung tresbel Ditie fait par Christine", summarizes triumph of the narrator and the author. Joan as virgin and as mother is also represented as a "simple bergiere" and therefore as a member of the paysannerie.
