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Helen Swift

Miranda Griffin

Marilynn Desmond

Simon Tillotson

In Our Time: Christine de Pizan

Christine de Pizan

08/06/2017

BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Christine de Pizan

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of Christine de Pizan (c1364-1430).

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Christine de Pizan (c1364-1430) who, according to Simone de Beauvoir, was the first woman to 'take up her pen in defence of her sex'.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and works of Christine de Pizan, who wrote at the French Court in the late Middle Ages and was celebrated by Simone de Beauvoir as the first woman to 'take up her pen in defence of her sex.' She wrote across a broad range, and was particularly noted for challenging the depiction of women by famous writers such as Jean de Meun, author of the Romance of the Rose. She has been characterised as an early feminist who argued that women could play a much more important role in society than the one they were allotted, reflected in arguably her most important work, The Book of the City of Ladies, a response to the seemingly endless denigration of women in popular texts of the time.

The image above, of Christine de Pizan lecturing, is (c)The British Library Board. Harley 4431, f.259v.

With 

Helen Swift
Associate Professor of Medieval French at the University of Oxford and Fellow of St Hilda's College

Miranda Griffin
Lecturer in French and Fellow of St Catharine's College, Cambridge

and 

Marilynn Desmond
Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Binghamton University



Producer: Simon Tillotson.

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