ABSTRACT
A learned woman of Italian origin who can be called France’s first professional woman author, Christine wrote over twenty works in many genres between 1390 and 1429. La Cité was one of those which grew out of her role as chief correspondent during the Querelle de la Rose, when she condemned as misogynic Jean de Meun’s conclusion to the Romance of the Rose. This debate allowed her to analyze male attitudes toward women, including the literary conventions of courtly love (Epistre au dieu d’a-mour, Le Dit de la Rose), and also to voice her own theories about women’s place in society (La Cité and Le Trésor de la cité des dames). Of these latter works, La Cité is the boldest. It is a dialogue in three books, in which Christine, offended by antifeminist writings, sets out to build a city of the great women of the past, aided by Reason, Righteousness, and Justice. Much of the work describes the excellence of these women, with historical justifications drawn from works such as Boccaccio’s De claris mulieribus and Jacopo da Voragine’s Legenda aurea.
