The Book of the City of Ladies (Penguin Classics)
by Christine de Pizan
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Book Summary Information
Author: Christine de PizanTranslator: Rosalind Brown-Grant
Edition: Paperback
Audio: French (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2000-01-01
ISBN: 0140446893
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Book Reviews of The Book of the City of Ladies (Penguin Classics)
Book Review: A different point of view
Summary: 3 Stars
This book is, in many ways, very close to other written in the Middle Ages: a list of good or bad women or men from the past, joined together around an idea: loyal wifes, or martyrs, or good rulers,... this is something very common that can be read, for instance, in Triomphi by Francesco Petrarca. But the original thing is that it was written by a woman and from a feminine point of view, trying to show that women are not those monsters some male writters showed -not all of them-. Some things she says are so actual and refreshing!! For instance, she rejects that stupid idea some men had that women like being raped and when they say no, they don't mean it,... isn't it something that still can be heard today?
The stories are not original, some of them can be read in Petrarca, or Chaucer or Boccaccio, with no great differences. For instance the story of Griselda can be found in Boccaccio's Decameron, Petrarca translated into Latin, and appears as one of the Canterbury Tales and in Christine's City of Dames.
The bottom line in this book is, for me, that if men were perfect, women would be perfect as well, but meanwhile, we are just human beings with our defects and virtues, and we should try to behave correctly.
Apart from that, I appreciate a book that shows what the Middle Ages were, now that everybody has got a very Romantic idea of it, full of mysteries and terrible secrets kept by the templarians or the cathars, about graals and esoteric forces,... Christine, as Boccaccio and Chaucer, or the poet Villon show the real Middle Ages: Christine is studying and suddenly, her mother calls her to supper, people goes on pilgrimages but they drink a lot of ale on their way and get drunken so they fight among them, and they do think, not about secret esoteric mysteries but about real things: should or should not women receive an education, how can we live a good life, how women and husbands must talk and treat to each other, ...
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