Talk:Christine de Pizan

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Who wrote this?

"Christine had beliefs that were seriously odd. "Sex is like bread, when it's good, it's very good. When it's bad it's still pretty good", was one of her famous quotes. Some people thought she was a little crazy, and there were others who thought it was truly artistic." This is not only very POV but clumsily phrased. It needs fixing but I'll leave that up to somebody who knows more about Christine.

is considered by scholars to be the first women writer

This is obviously wrong as written: Sappho predated her by something like 2000 years. Would the original author care to expand on what he meant? -- Paul Drye

Yep, entirely incorrect. She might be the first European woman to have made a living from writing, though even that is contested. We're not sure what Marie de France did for a living. --MichaelTinkler

Very true. What was meant by the statement, was that de Pizan was the first women author of note, in Europe to make a living from being a writer. This came directly from my humanities instructor -- although I myself find such statements hard to believe without rigid substantiation. I agree with the change. -- Maveric149

Just to continue this discussion - are we aware of any writers that earned a living by writing, before Christine? I was fairly certain that Edmund Spenser was the first European to do so. Atorpen 22:18 Jan 27, 2003 (UTC)
I don't know about authors prior to Christine, but she did earn a living by her pen for most of her adult life. This would mean that Spenser certainly wasn't the first — he was born a full century after she died.  — AnnaKucsma   (Talk to me!) 16:41, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
What evidence is there that Christine de Pizan earned a living by writing? Are her household accounts available? The primitive printing technology of the time would not have allowed mass distribution of her works so who purchased them and at what price? Xxanthippe (talk) 21:58, 30 December 2007 (UTC).

Sorry - I love the picture; Christine might even have overseen it (she did for some of her books produced in her lifetime), but it's an image from a book owned by a library or museum. They hold copyright - and tend to protect them jealously. --MichaelTinkler

What's with all the references to her via her first name? Is this conventional? Loren

I'm not certain if "Pizan" or "de Pizan" can really be thought of as a last name in the modern sense and thus saying "Pizan" instead of "Christine" would be wrong. --mav
I've also seen her referred to as "Christine de Pisan" (with an S instead of a Z).  — AnnaKucsma   (Talk to me!) 20:37, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, in writing about the Middle Ages, scholarly convention is to refer to people whose names have the "____ de ____" construction by their first names, for, at that stage, the "de ____" was often actually identifying where a person was from, and wasn't yet equivalent to a modern last name. I do not know exactly when that changes, so I can't say with 100% certainty that it has not changed by Christine's day, which is the main reason I don't edit it back. But given the scholarly conventions I've been taught regarding writing about the Middle Ages, this "Pizan"/"de Pizan" feels very wrong. I'll see if I can pursue further information and settle the question. --Paulbee 04:33, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Convention had not changed by Christine's day, I am certain of this. I'm not certain of the timeline for that change either, but I'd guess closer to the age of print (though even then, spellings and appellations weren't always rigid). It is conventional to refer to anyone -- male or female -- with an "of somewhere" by primary name. So in the same way we discuss Mary Queen of Scots as "Mary" so we discuss Christine de Pizan or Jean de Meun as "Christine" or "Jean." Mys46637 18:45, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

She also wrote about the victory of Joan of Arc at the Battle of Agincourt

If this statement is correct, it should be clarified that this is Alternative history. (Joan was 3 at the time, and the French lost.) --Townmouse 08:38, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Actually, the the idea's right but not the battle. Christine wrote about Joan's most famous victory, the lifting the Siege of Orléans.  — AnnaKucsma   (Talk to me!) 13:56, 25 July 2006 (UTC); edited 15:54, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV

Some parts of this article read more like a persuasive paper than an encyclopedic article. --Fang Aili 17:22, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

The text overall isn't that bad. The references are cited in that ugly parenthetical way, but there's nothing too POV in there. Some uncited weasel phrasing ("Overall, de Pizan and her writings have been celebrated and embraced" By whom? We don't even have a "Influence" section.) crops up now and again, but it's nothing a rigorous copy-edit couldn't fix. The headings, though, are terrible. "Establishing her literary reputation" "Making her mark" "an authoritative rhetorician". The whole article seems like it would do well to receive a division into "Life" and "Work", without all the high-flown pop biographical phrasing. Geuiwogbil 18:56, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Done. Hope no one minds. Geuiwogbil 00:30, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Wait, I reread it. Indeed, it seems too much like a essaye with aims at persuasion. Something more serious need be done. Geuiwogbil 18:58, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pizan or Pisan

I know that her name is a transliteration of French, but is it correctly Pisan or Pizan? The article is inconsistant as to which is preferred or correct.

Indeed. I've only ever seen it as Pisan elsewhere, although Pizan seems to have some mentions in the literature. We at least need to be consistent throughout our article. I've changed all Pisans to Pizans. JackofOz 10:44, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I, too, have seen it written almost exclusively as "Pisan" but would rather have a consistant spelling. Where I do see variation (in a fairly even split) is in calling her "of Pisan" or "de Pisan," though given Wikipedia's preference for calling everything by their English names — Mary Queen of Scots married François II of France, here called Francis II of France — I think it's setteled on an "of."  — AnnaKucsma   (Talk to me!) 19:08, 20 October 2006 (UTC)


Christine's name comes from her father's city of origin: Pizzano. So technically, Pizan is probably more accurate, but Pisan is a French phonetic spelling of the proper sound to her name (but it promotes the misunderstanding that she was from Pisa). Understandably French speakers tend to use Pisan, Italian speakers Pizan. I'm not sure if there is a "correct" spelling that Anglophones should adopt; consistency is the best best. Mys46637 18:40, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Her Husband?

I could have sworn Etienne du Castel was a castle not a man's name. Are the writer's of this page sure that was his name?

Heri Larien 01:24, 22 December 2006 (UTC)Heri Larien

No, Etienne du Castel is/was not a castle, though it would seem like a logical assumption if you haven't taken any French. Étienne is the French form of the name "Stephen," and du translates as "of the" when preceeding masculine nouns (de, "of", + le, "the").  — AnnaKucsma   (Talk to me!) 22:48, 25 December 2006 (UTC), tweaked 15:50, 12 January 2007 (UTC)