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Christine de Pizan - Works
By 1405, Christine de
Pizan had completed her most successful literary works, The Book of
the City of Ladies and The Treasure of the City of Ladies, or The
Book of the Three Virtues. The first of these shows the importance
of women’s past contributions to society, and the second strives to
teach women of all estates how to cultivate useful qualities in
order to counteract the growth of misogyny (Willard 1984:135).
Christine’s final work was a poem eulogizing
Joan of Arc, the peasant girl who took a very public role in
organizing French military resistance to English domination in the
early fifteenth century. Written in 1429, The Tale of Joan of Arc
celebrates the appearance of a woman military leader who, according
to Christine, vindicated and rewarded all women’s efforts to defend
their own sex (Willard 1984:205). After completing this particular
poem, it seems that Christine, at the age of sixty-five, decided to
end her literary career (Willard 1984:207). The exact date of her
death is unknown. However, her death did not diminish appreciation
for her renowned literary works. Instead, her legacy continued on
because of the voice she established as an authoritative
rhetorician.
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