The Allegory of Female Authority

by Quilligan, Maureen

• ISBN13: 9780801497889
• ISBN10: 0801497884
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1991-12-01
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr

Summary

The first professional female writer, Christine de Pizan (1363-1431) was widowed at age twenty-five and supported herself and her family by enlisting powerful patrons for her poetry. Her Livre de la Cité des Dames (1405) is the earliest European work on women's history by a woman. An allegorical poem that revises masculine traditions, it asserts and defends the authority of women in general and of its author in particular. In this generously illustrated book, Maureen Quilligan provides a persuasive and penetrating interpretation of the Cité.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface
Introduction	p. 1
The Name of the Author	p. 11
Rewriting Tradition: The Authority of Female Subjectivity	p. 69
Rewriting the City: The Politics of Prophecy	p. 104
Rewriting the Body: The Politics of Martyrdom	p. 189
The Practice of History	p. 246
Index	p. 285
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.