Feminine Strokes in French Intellectual History of the Late Middle Ages

The Didactic Literature and the Legitimization of the Self in Christine de Pizan’s Le chemin de longue étude

Abstract

In 1402, Christine de Pizan writes Le Chemin de Longue Étude, hybrid work consisting of a dream, a journey through earth and heaven and a debate between celestial allegories. The autobiographical nature of the vision and the journey, on the one hand, and the desire to teach that will be hidden behind the controversy between the allegories, on the other hand, are aimed at demonstrating that the path of knowledge that Christine de Pizan passes is a artifice behind which our prolific author conceals a route towards legitimizing the self as an intellectual and it also is a tactic aimed at positioning Christine de Pizan in the circle of intellectuals committed to the illustration of the French nobility.